The wooden church
UNESCO-listed, seating 1,500, and built without iron.
SchiDD — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photograph: Jano Gallo (talk) — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Photograph: Jano Gallo (talk) — CC BY-SA 4.0 · 10ricardo — CC BY-SA 4.0
A complete town castle preserved inside the fabric of **Kežmarok**, and one of the few in Slovakia that never became a ruin. It was built in the fifteenth century, but its oddity is its position: **it is not on a hill**. Most castles in the region stand on high rock; this is an urban castle built inside the town itself to protect its inhabitants — the German merchants who settled the **Spiš region** in the Middle Ages. Its wings enclose a courtyard, and hold the castle chapel, furnished halls, a museum of the town's history and crafts, and cellars with a display on medieval punishment. Note: the thing not to miss in Kežmarok is not the castle. It is the **wooden Evangelical church** a few minutes away. Built in 1717 **entirely of timber without a single iron nail**, because the law then forbade Protestants to use stone or iron or to raise a tower. It seats 1,500 and is **UNESCO-listed**.
UNESCO-listed, seating 1,500, and built without iron.
Enclosed wings around a yard, with the chapel inside.
A museum on the German merchants who settled the region.
Hradné námestie 42, Kežmarok — about 17 km from Poprad
They are the direct result of a legal restriction. After the Catholic victory in central Europe, the Habsburg authorities allowed Protestants very few churches and only under harsh conditions: **timber only**, no iron nails, no tower and no bells, outside the town walls, with no door onto the main street — and some had to be finished **within a single year**. The result was the opposite of what was intended: huge wooden buildings seating thousands, of exceptional carpentry, with fully painted interiors. About ten survive in Slovakia and eight are **UNESCO-listed** — the best known at Kežmarok, Leštiny and Hronsek.
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