Tata, Hungary, where we said ta-ta to Hungary.

After we left the monastery, Judit, Lilly, Adrienne and I headed to the town of Tata, where they had a castle and a cafe.

We stopped first at a confectionery for a taste of cake and something to drink.

The cafe's building was quite yellow.

The town is quite cute.

 Here's the confectionery where we ate.

After our snack, we headed over to the castle. The land with the castle was originally placed on a Roman settlement, then the castle was built on the same land. The castle museum had a lot of the Roman ruins, as well as the newer castle.

The castle was built in the Renaissance style. I'm not sure exactly when, but the first mention of the town was in 1221, so it was built sometime after that.

The castle was built along a fairly large lake, which is quite beautiful.

And here's the castle. During the Ottoman Empire, the castle was an important fortress. It was captured in 1529, then later burned down by the Habsburgs. The Esterhazy family, mentioned in the previous blog because they owned parts of the monastery, later bought the property and built a mansion/palace nearby for them to live in.

Here's the side of the castle.

Among the artifacts are altar stones and Roman sarcophaguses and other carvings in the yard of the Castle.

This is a Roman carving with various gods standing under each arch.

They had old Roman statues as well, which were really cool.

And extremely tiny. But also really cool.

There's a scary baby head (Adrienne).

Here's an old furnace.

A helmet. For some reason it is accompanied by pipes. The reasoning is unclear.

In addition to Roman ruins, the museum housed a variety of traditional Hungarian pottery and paintings.

They also had an interesting clock.

This was beautiful.

A man casually leaning on his teacup.

This was also beautiful.

As was this. Everything was intricately designed.

Here's some lettuce.

The view from the castle, overlooking some of the Roman ruins that are just hanging out in the garden.

There's the town from above.

There were children playing among the ruins.

There's Adrienne in front of the castle.

If you want any more information about the castle, the museum's website is here.

After exploring the castle, we headed towards the Esterhazy palace and walked on the lake.

The castle from the back.

This is the Esterhazy mansion/palace. It's not quite a palace but is a very large mansion.

We continued walking along the lake, passing this horse statue, then looking at the water.

We watched a dragon boat practice for a bit.

Looked at the castle from the lake.

Took some pictures, then headed back to the car.

The outside walls of the castle were pretty beautiful.

We headed back to Budapest afterwards. Nora came over that evening and we all chatted and ate dinner, until heading to bed. It was a nice last day in Hungary! Adrienne and I headed to Vienna the next day, feeling quite sad about leaving. Judit, Kosztya, Nora and Lilly are so welcoming and wonderful. I hope to make it back to visit as soon as I can!