Bakonybél is a village in Veszprém county,

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

, in Zirc District. A tourist destination with a number of sights and activities, the village is located in a basin surrounded by nearby mountains.

History

The history of the village is closely connected to the

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

Bakonybél Abbey founded by Saint Stephen I in 1018. Saint Gellert resided here as a hermit between 1023 and 1030. The village had been completely destroyed during the Ottoman occupation and was later rebuilt and repopulated with Slovaks and Germans.

The Jewish community

In the 19th and 20th centuries, a small Jewish community lived in the village, in 1880 23 Jews lived in the village, most of whom were murdered in the Holocaust. The community had a Jewish cemetery.Badacsonytomajs Jewish cemetery
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Main sights

The

church and monastery were built in 1754 in

Baroque The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...

style. There is also a chapel close to the village with the statue of Saint Gellert, the stations of Christ's sufferings and the holy trinity, at Ivy Spring (also known as Saint Spring), next to a lake supplied by the spring. Another sight is the Ethnographic Museum in the village. There is also a museum of nature and forestry called the House of the Bakony Forests. Another attraction is a 19th-century American ranch, not very far from the village, with horse-related activities. There are also multiple routes for trips in the nearby forests and hills, offering scenery, caves and a lookout tower on the highest peak of the Bakony Mountains.

Facilities

There is a three star hotel and several guest houses in the village. There are also restaurants and pubs. A number of small grocery stores and also separate greengrocers are available.
There is a community house providing tourist information, a doctor's office, and catering. The village has its own post office, pharmacy, day nursery, primary school and library with Internet access.

References

External links