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.

What you actually see

• 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.

Honest expectations

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.