The story of Festetics Palace

This is one of the three largest country houses in Hungary, and it took more than a century to build. Kristóf Festetics began it in 1745 on the foundations of a ruined castle, and it was tripled in size in later campaigns, most recently in the 1880s to designs by the Viennese architect Viktor Rumpelmayer.

The Festetics counts were progressive landowners who founded a hospital and a school, and in 1797 Count György Festetics opened the Georgikon, an agricultural college, the first of its kind in Europe. Step into the library wing, built in 1799–1801: its great collection, once open to the Georgikon's students, is the only substantial aristocratic library surviving in Hungary.

The grand expansion was made for Count Tasziló Festetics, who married Lady Mary Douglas-Hamilton in 1880 and entertained the Prince of Wales here in 1885 and 1888. Nationalised in 1949, the palace has housed the Helikon Palace Museum since 1974, and in 2019–2020 it was a filming location for the Netflix series Shadow and Bone.