Stadtschlaining Castle

Burg Schlaining was built in the fourteenth century and belonged for a long period to the Batthyány family; what makes it worth a page now is what was done with it in the 1980s. Gerald Mader founded the Austrian Study Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution here in 1982, and the castle became its base - running training for mediators, UN and OSCE personnel and civilian peacekeepers, hosting conferences, and later associated with a UNESCO chair. Alongside sits the European Museum for Peace, which takes the unusual approach of presenting the history of warfare and of attempts to end it in the same rooms. The town below has a synagogue and a Jewish cemetery from a community that was substantial before 1938 and was destroyed.

What you actually see

• A peace research institute in a castle - training for mediators and peacekeepers since 1982.
• The European Museum for Peace - war and peacemaking presented together.
• A fourteenth-century fortress - Batthyány building with later work.
• The town's Jewish remains - synagogue and cemetery of a community lost after 1938.

When to go

April to October; the museum has seasonal hours. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The castle is a working institute - conferences close parts of it, and it is not a conventional castle visit. Museum opening is seasonal and limited. The town is very small.

Nearby

Bernstein and Lockenhaus are close; Güssing is south.