Pannonhalma Archabbey completes tourism development project with EU support

The Pannonhalma Archabbey in western Hungary has been complemented with a new visitor building and a youth pilgrim hostel with over 1.2 billion forints worth of support from the European Union and Hungary's central budget as part of a tourism development project, said Archabbot Asztrik Varszegi on Wednesday.

The project, completed from a total budget of 1.5 billion forints, also included a revamp of the abbey's arboretum and garden, and the construction of an amphitheatre, Varszegi said. Thanks to the development project, the archabbey can now offer visitor services at current European standards, he added.

The visitor building includes a car park with eighty places, a restaurant and a conference hall with a capacity of 100-120 people, said Prior Cirill Hortobagyi. The arboretum and garden present the herb-growing traditions of Benedictine monks and the amphitheatre will host cultural events, he added.

The pilgrim hostel has been built as the last phase of the development project that took around a year and a half. The project is expected to increase the annual number of visitors from 100,000 to 120,000, said Hortobagyi.

The archabbey was put on UNESCO's World Heritage list in 1996.

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