Betliar Castle

Betliar Castle, located in the Gemer district of Slovakia, has a rich history. The first owners of the castle, the Bebeks family, laid the foundation of the building in the middle of the XV century. In their time there was a two-storey building with windows - loopholes, which looked more like a fortress than a residential house. At the beginning of the XVIII century, the castle passed into the possession of the aristocratic Andrassy family, who turned this place into their summer residence and built a hunting palace for themselves.

Today’s building of the castle, whose architecture dates back to the XIX century, is a three-storey mansion in the Renaissance Baroque style, built of brick and painted yellow. Three-storey towers are attached to the main building on four sides.

Since 1945, the castle, which was not damaged during the Second World War, belongs to the Ministry of Culture of Slovakia, which in 1994 opened a museum with a rich collection (25,000 exhibits) of weapons, furniture and hunting trophies brought by Andrassy from travels around the world. The area of 50 exhibition halls of the museum is about 2000 square meters. Here you can see historical engravings and manuscripts of the XV-XX centuries in different languages, two mummies, a stuffed crocodile, the claws of a bear. The library collection includes about 20,000 books, magazines, newspapers. The 81-hectare castle park is made in English style. Here grow exotic plants, among which the highest magnolia in Slovakia, oaks and pine trees belonging to the virgin yew forest. Since 1985, Betliar Park and Castle have been considered a national cultural monument of Slovakia.