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Festetics Castle, Keszthely (Hungary)

Keszthely is a Hungarian town of 23,000 inhabitants located on the western shore of Lake Balaton.
Though settled since at least Roman times (the Keszthely culture of Romance pannonian language), the first historical evidence of the town Keszthely dates from a 1247 document. Since 1421, Keszthely has been a market town.
Festetics Castle lies in a large park to the north of the town center. It was the residence of the Festetics family for two hundred years. The first palace, built for Kristóf Festetics in 1745, was a comparatively modest affair with "only" 34 rooms and a French Baroque garden. The enlarged and changed building we see today was the work of the Viennese architect Viktor Rumpelmayer, carried out between 1883 and 1887 on the instructions of the future Duke Tasziló Festetics. The result is a spacious, horseshoe-shaped complex with 101 rooms. The uniform Neo-Baroque façade, built on the lines of French palaces, is accentuated by the tower in the central wing. The garden at the rear was designed by the English landscape gardener E.H. Miller, and a wall with a gateway separates the palace from the town.