Villa Romana Balaca

At the foot hills of Bakony, only 20 kilometres from Lake Balaton, halfway between Veszprem and Szekesfehervar, at the main square of Varpalota, stands the Thury Castle. The predecessor of the castle was the residency of the Kont family, built in the 14th century. The buildings of the residency were reconstructed into a castle with four corner bastions and an interior courtyard by Miklós Újlaky, between 1439 and 1445. The most famous siege of the castle took place in 1566, when the Ottoman army, led by Pasha Arslan was defeated by György Thury and his brave soldiers. Thury had to face an army sixteen times bigger than the defending force and still managed to hold the fort. More than a century later, after the fighting ceased, the building was transformed into a palace by the Zichy family between 1699 and 1702. Nowadays the castle stands in the middle of Várpalota, being one of the few castles in Hungary that remained in such good contition.