Kethüda Minaret

About this place

The Kethüda Minaret is an Ottoman stone minaret in the centre of Eger in northeastern Hungary, standing in a small square where four streets meet. It is the northernmost surviving Ottoman building in Europe, and the tallest and best preserved of the three intact minarets left in Hungary. It was probably built in the early 17th century, sometime between 1596 and 1664, of carefully cut sandstone blocks, beside an ornate red sandstone mosque that stood to its east. Ten minarets were raised in the city during the Ottoman period, and this is the only one left. The mosque was later turned into a church and then a hospital, and was demolished in 1841. The minaret rises from a fourteen-sided base to a height of 40 metres. The broad base narrows through a conical section into the shaft, and in its upper third a balcony with a wrought-iron railing runs around it at 26 metres, above a richly carved row of brackets. The stone cone that crowns it today was added in 1897, and it was last restored in 2018. Visitors climb a narrow spiral staircase of 98 tall steps inside the minaret to the balcony, which looks out over Eger's red roofs, the castle and the surrounding hills. The stairway is very tight and steep, so it is not for anyone uneasy in small spaces.