Pannonhalma Abbey

Founded by Benedictine monks almost 1000 years ago, Pannonhalma Abbey has been destroyed and rebuilt many times and is now a crazy quilt of Turkish, Romanesque and Gothic architectural styles. The interior is beautiful despite the butchery, and includes a neoclassical library containing 300,000 volumes, making it the largest private library in Hungary.

Also inside the abbey are historical archives holding some of the earliest surviving examples of written Hungarian; a gallery with works by Dutch, Italian and Austrian masters from the 16th to 18th centuries; and, above the red-marble arched doorway, a fresco depicting the patron, St Martin of Tours.

Look down to the right near St Martin and you’ll see, written in Latin, perhaps the oldest graffiti in Hungary: ‘Benedict Padary was here in 1578′. Pannonhalma is a working monastery, and must be visited with a guide.