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Halász Árpádné
2017-05-08 16:10:46

Ebben az évben is mindennel 100 %-ig elégedettek voltunk, ezért is járunk Önökhöz vissza!!! Nagyon jól kipihentük magunkat, ugyanazt a kedvességet, tisztaságot, nyugalmat tapasztaltuk most is, mint minden évben! 2016.07.03

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Ganna - Esterhazy's Mausoleum

The crypt of two famous local branches of the noble Eszterházy clan can be found in the neighbouring settlement.

"...How long does a life take?

This question is sometimes asked by the former dwellers of Szarvaskő castle in Döbrönte when they take their nightly strolling on the ruins and they have no idea that the children in the small, dark rooms who are waken up by the squeaky sound of floorboards can see them. A noble company ambles along the house at night. Imre Himfi was the captain of the castle which overlooked and controlled the road between Pápa and Veszprém and his sweetheart Flóra Urgond who the captain himself had saved from the nearby Bittva Stream on an awful, stormy night. You can find King Matthias here, too, since he was the God-father to Flóra and participated in the engagement ceremony of the youth. As legend has it, the good old king had no other thing to do than wander about in the whole country in disguise visiting the once proud and intact castles. It’s mainly in Ganna where time has a message for us all: legends, tales, past and memories all help us defeat death. In this small hamlet which used to be occupied by hard-working Swabian people we can find the grave church and crypt of two local branches of the noble Eszterházy family’s, namely the Fraknós and Galánthais. There are altogether 52 Eszterházy family members having their eternal sleeps here surrounded by the stuffy eternity burdened with history. Some light always manages to come through proving that we are walking on the mysterious path on the border of life and death.

We are here – they are over there.

Bálint Esterházy is over there. He was the ambassador in Paris first, later he was positioned in Saint Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Tsar. In that wild and melancholic place the Hungarian earl fell in love with Ilona Kocsubej grand princess. The date of wedding was set when a young ranked officer of the guards who was also in love with the princess challenged the Hungarian earl for an American style of dual. It was a strange dual: two balls, a white and a black were hidden and the man picking the black one had to commit suicide within a set interval of time.
The handsome Hungarian earl picked the black ball. Ilona Kocsubej, the black-haired beauty appeared in the funeral in Ganna. She was praying for three long hours at the grave of her beloved one in the crypt and came up from the tomb grey. Pál Esterházy rests a bit further away. He was a very tall hussar first lieutenant. He was said to often visit England and he had several lords as his partners in playing cards. Once, one of the lords threw one penny under the table by chance so had to go and look for it on all four under the table. Our hussar lit a hundred-pound note to help the lord to see well to find the penny. This smart, giant Hungarian died a noble death: he was fighting in the Carpathians against the Russians in the First World War. His giant body towered out of the ditch. His soldiers begged him to bend down but his reply was:

– ”A member of the Esterházy family never bends in front of anyone.” The next moment he was shot by the head by a Russian soldier. That’s how his body got carried to Ganna. His tomb evokes strange feelings in those who come to visit it. There is another, adjacent crypt of Móris Esterházy with the winged lion on its gate. The coat of arms was taken from the Thökölys. The young Menyhárt also rests in this crypt. He designed the Kossuth Bridge for which he got awarded. Ernő Gerő, the communist minister almost got a shock that he had to shake hands with an aristocrat. Menyhárt died of paralysis young – one year before the Sabin drops were invented..."

(extract from the book 1100 Years in the Middle of Europe by Zsolt Bayer)

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