festetics palace

Only 6 km from the Heviz Lake, this is a great visit. We rented bicycles (many bicycles lanes between Heviz and Keszthely) and it is an easy ride.To dispel confusion, some people call this place the Helikon castle/museum - it is the same place.The castle itself with lovely furniture and a magnificent library may be visited alone, signs in English everywhere. Besides the castle itself, it offers several other museums (coaches, trains, ...).We had just visited Fertöd (dubbed small Versailles), near Sopron, and I like this castle much better.

If you're tired of lying all day on the beaches of Balaton and looking for a day-trip to take, I'd suggest you pay the Palace a visit. With its beautiful architecture and grand gardens with impressive outdoor spaces, it really is worth a visit. We did not pay to go in (it was pricey in our opinion), but we did make the most of the Palace grounds and simply soaked up its splendid ambience.

This splendid palace has to be seen from outside (open for free 24/7), but it is also worth visiting!The ticket is a bit pricey, but it includes chic palace interiors and an impressive coach collection! We are not cray fans of either, still we enjoyed our visit a lot! So don't be put away by negative reviews! ;)There are other museums too, but we didn't visit those.

Great for kids, the palace is very nice to visit with kids, and the big park out side is amazing in a sunny day. Take the combo card that include also the carriage museum, the kids will love it and so do you.

While accepting that people are different and that we are all entitled to different opinions, I must say that I am surprised at some of the negative comments here. One contributor labels the carriage museum as "crap" and not worth the admission. My suggestion is that if you don't like old carriages - don't go to a carriage museum, simples! Personally, I have no great passion for carriages but I can recognise a superb collection when I see one, and I cannot imagine a larger or better collection than this.Architecturally the house is stunning from the exterior and although I agree that it looks a little tired on the inside, there is still plenty of interest to see; and re a previous comment that the rooms are full of pictures of people who used to live here - that is kind of the deal in stately homes!The gardens are also well laid out and very pleasant to walk around - or take a carriage ride if you prefer. And far as cost is concerned, while I agree that there should be no extra charge for taking photos, I thought that overall the value was very good as it gave access to several very good museums. I agree with the lady who commented on the sadness of the "hunting" museum, but when you put those feelings aside ( albeit with some difficulty I agree) it is a magnificent collection nevertheless. The model railway museum is also very good and, as already stated, the carriage museum is splendid.We had a very pleasant couple of hours here and would recommend it.

Loved the parks and fountains, and the building is very pretty. They hold evening concerts at designated times. While visiting the parks we had a ride on one of the chariots, which was fun and not at all expensive (unlike in many other cities).

A wonderful example of 18th century luxury Very impressive building, grounds and fitting and quite an easy walk around. Great view from the frount area over the city and lake Balaton

The Festetics Palace is probably the most beautiful Hungarian castle, still all the grandeur does not explain the high ticket prices. 2300 Ft for the entrance + 1500 to make pictures is way too high for this place. The gardens and the exterior of the building are beautiful, there's a fountain, a small lake, it's a very nice place. Inside the palace you can visit a set of rooms, some furnished, some not, showcasing the aristocratic lifestyle of the past ages. The biggest attraction is the library, with an amazing collection of old books and and the bookcases themselves are masterpieces.If only the prices were not that high, I would give it a 5 star, but still it's a must see if you are in the Balaton area. Take a stroll in the garden and admire the baroque building, its a breathtaking castle.

We visited on Wednesday, and half of it was free of charge. Our friends went on the next day and nothing was free. The gardens outside are free to visit and are nice. We visited the main palace and it is very well organized in a circular route, every room is explained in English, Hungarian, Dutch and Russian. You can find ponies rides for kids, playground (probably not free) and carriage rides.

The palace is a great example of late Baroque architecture and it is accompanied with a grand beautiful garden, fountains, a restaurant and a cafe.There is an interesting small museum which is dedicated horse carriages/cabs.If you like history, literature or at least Harry Potter, you'd be thrilled to visit a fantastic library in the palace.

The palace exterior and garden are quite nice, but the interior is nothing to write home about. A handful of furnished rooms, and a lot of boring sketches (I mean like actual rooms full of nothing but pencil drawn sketches of flowers and fruits). If you ask me don't bother with any of the paying crap, you will be disappointed.

It cost us 2300 Hungarian Forints (HUF) (approx. 8 Euros) to get in each. That ticket gave us access to the palace and to the carriage museum. Firstly, the carriage museum is only included in the ticket price to the palace because nobody would ever visit it otherwise. Plus, it adds apparent value to the ticket price, which I believe was very high for what we got.Inside the palace, there are some lovely ornate rooms and staircases... sadly, you're not allowed to photograph any of it. If you want to take photos, you have to buy a 'photography pass' for 1500 HUF (approx. 5 Euros). What a total con and a flagrant attempt to milk tourists for more money. The café also charged 800 HUF or 3.70 EUR for an Irish coffee... 800 HUF is approximately 2.50 EUR!!! Another example of them trying to milk the cash cow tourist. They also charged 100 HUF to use the toilet! Was not impressed at all.Much of the palace is just looking at various portraits of members of the Festetics family. There are information boards in English, many of which keep alluding to the family abandoning the palace in 1944, but never explains why or what happened to them after 1944. If they met a grizzly end, I want to know all about it! Much more information about the palace and its occupants should have been provided for the entrance fee paid.The grounds are very pretty and worth a 5 minutes stroll around, but does not make the value of the entrance ticket acceptable.If you want to go to a good castle, go to the Szigliget fortress which is just 14km down the road from Keszthely. It cost just 600 HUF to get in and was far more informative and interesting. Plus, the view from the top out over the lake was worth the entrance fee alone.

We didnt see the palace inside, but the surroundings were beautiful. Lovely place with several museums.

The time we spent having spa treatments was deducted from our time in the thermal lake - and although they said it would be it was not refunded so we did not do any other treatments.

It's quite confusing when you first arrive, it's not clear where to buy tickets or enter. Like so much of this area, the people are well used to German visitors but there is very little English spoken (fair enough).After stumbling through the ticket purchasing process in the gift shop (a family bulk entry to all Museums was the best value), we tried to enter the Palace only to realise that we were required to wait for the next guided tour which was in Hungarian. There are English information panels in most of the rooms and a member of our group very kindly translated a lot of what the guide was saying so that we could enjoy the extra tidbits of information. The Palace is very grand and the library is magnificent.Next we explored the coach/ carriage museum across the other side of the gardens, there was very little information available but the coaches were beautifully restored and displayed.A short walk away and across the road is another part of the complex housing the model train display and the hunting museum.With a seven year old boy in our midst we spent quite a bit of time admiring the amazing model train display. He simply loved it!Unfortunately can't say the same about the hunting museum. Whilst the collection is amazing, coming from a different culture where hunting native animals is mostly seen as abhorrent, our children were appalled at the collection of stalked and stuffed elephants, lions, bears, etc, and the youngest was in tears by the time we left! Although we tried to explain the historical context and how attitudes have changed over time etc, I also found myself quite disturbed by the gigantic elephant tusks and the truncated elephant feet dotted around the place.The plantarium is run down and disappointing and again quite confusing. Not much to see there.Overall the Palace is a little tired and the gardens were devoid of any flowers during our visit, but I think there might be some plans to rectify this. Worth a visit but don't expect too much.