Esterházy Palace is Fertőd’s only sight, but what a sight it is! When originally completed, this horseshoe-shaped baroque and rococo palace boasted 126 rooms, a separate opera house, a hermitage (complete with a real-live cranky old man in a sack cloth who wanted to be left alone), temples to Diana and Venus, a Chinese dance house, a puppet theatre and a 250-hectare garden laid out in the French manner. Today only 23 rooms are open to the public and if you’re wondering whether they were gilded with real gold, the answer is: yes, around 30kg of the stuff.
As you approach the main entrance to the so-called Courtyard of Honour , notice the ornamental wrought-iron gate, a masterpiece of the rococo. Note also the rather violent statuary: the cherubs in the fountain and the bearded men in the alcoves on either side seemingly intent on doing harm to the vanquished beasts with their golden tridents.
The Palace Museum tour (one hour) passes through several rooms decorated in the pseudo-Chinese style that was all the rage in the late 18th century; the pillared Sala Terrena, which served as the summer dining room, with its floor of Carrara marble (heated from underneath in cold weather) and Miklós Esterházy’s monogram in floral frescoes on the ceiling; and the Prince’s Bed Chamber, with paintings of Amor. On the 1st floor are more sumptuous baroque and rococo salons as well as the lavish Concert Hall, where many of the works of composer Franz Joseph Haydn (a 30-year resident of the palace) were first performed, including the Farewell Symphony in 1772.
The most striking feature of the adjacent Banqueting Hall is the Mildorfer’s ceiling fresco, Glory of Apollo , with Apollo’s chariot which seems to be gunning straight for you, regardless of where you stand.
The apartment where Haydn lived, off and on, from 1761 to 1790, is in the west wing of the baroque Music House , southwest of the palace, beyond which stretch the seemingly endless French gardens. When Empress Maria Theresa attended a masked ball here in 1773, Miklós ‘the Splendour Lover’ threw one of the greatest parties of all time, complete with fireworks and 24,000 Chinese lanterns, and presented the Empress with a jewel-encrusted sleigh as a parting gift.
Two major musical events at the palace are the Haydn Festival of Strings in July and the more established Haydn Esterháza Festival in late August/early September. For information and tickets check with the ticket office at the palace.
The palace may only be visited as part of a tour, and though tours tend to be in Hungarian only, you are presented with a detailed fact sheet in English so that you can follow the tour.
Two very convenient restaurants for a bite to eat are both located in Grenadier House, the former living quarters of the grenadier guards opposite the palace, and tend to be open all day, every day.
