Papa

Papa was an Esterhazy town and looks it: a large Baroque castle on the main square, a substantial church, and a centre of eighteenth and nineteenth-century houses. Its distinctive museum is industrial. The Kluge family ran a blue-dyeing workshop here from 1786 until 1956, printing cloth with resist paste using carved blocks and dyeing it in indigo vats, and when it closed the whole plant was kept as it stood, with the vats, the mangle, the drying loft and thousands of printing blocks in place. Resist block printing and indigo dyeing in Europe was inscribed on the UNESCO intangible heritage list in 2018 as a joint nomination of five countries including Hungary, and this is the place it is shown.

History

Pápa is first mentioned in 1061, perhaps named after the Pápa kindred, gained civic privileges in the 14th century and became a market town early in the next, formed from 11 villages. It became one of the main centres of Protestantism in Transdanubia: a Reformed school worked here as early as 1531, later adding theology and law, the first Hungarian translation of the Heidelberg Catechism was printed here in 1577, and its castle, standing by the 15th century, became part of the border defences against the Ottomans (Wikipedia, Pápa).

What to look for

• The Kluge blue-dye workshop - a complete plant kept as it closed in 1956.
• Thousands of carved printing blocks - the pattern stock of the trade.
• The indigo vats and drying loft - the process in its original rooms.
• The Esterhazy castle - the Baroque house on the main square.

When to go

April to October. Half a day. The blue-dyeing museum has limited hours and closes on Mondays. Guided visits explain the process properly.

Before you go

The museum is small and the explanation is largely in Hungarian. The castle interior is only partly open. The town beyond the square is ordinary and quiet.

Nearby

Sarvar is west; Veszprem lies south-east.

Key facts