Szircs Vára

Szircs vára stands on a hill rising above the valley of the Bijela stream, east of the village of Szircs in Lower Austria. A 13th-century noble residence was later enlarged into a castle by Kasztellánfi Gáspár in 1430. The castle guarded a mountain pass through the region during the Middle Ages. The site is worth visiting for its well-preserved medieval layout and the story of its sieges. In 1542 the Ottomans captured the castle and stationed troops and cannons there, even adding a small mosque. Bornemissza János received the castle as a gift in 1516 after the original family died out. The imperial general Hans Dünewald destroyed the castle in 1687 when he recaptured it from the Turks. Today the castle appears as an irregular pentagon with walls partly rebuilt to about a metre high. A gate on the southeast side led through two wings, probably once protected by a tower. Inside, the inner walls were later surrounded by an outer curtain wall reinforced with horseshoe-shaped towers. The walls stand in places as high as one storey and have been carefully conserved.