Ptuj Castle
Hilltop castle above the Drava holding the Regional Museum's arms, masks and instrument collections.
Ptuj Castle crowns a hill above the Drava and the oldest recorded town in Slovenia. A fortress was raised here in the eleventh century under the archbishops of Salzburg; the Lords of Ptuj held it for some three hundred years, after which it passed to the Counts Leslie, who remodelled much of it in the Baroque period, and then to the Counts Herberstein, who stayed until 1945. The complex combines medieval walls, a late Gothic bastion, a Renaissance portal and Baroque ranges around two courtyards.
The castle has housed the Regional Museum Ptuj-Ormož since the estate was nationalised after the Second World War. Eight permanent collections fill the rooms: arms and armour, medieval and early modern art, paintings on glass, the castle gallery, feudal dwelling culture with furnished period interiors, and a display on the castle's own history. The collection of musical instruments is among the largest in the country, while the carnival masks document the Kurent figures paraded at Ptuj's Shrovetide festival.
Highlights
- Eight permanent collections, from arms and armour to furnished interiors
- Kurent carnival masks from Ptuj's Shrovetide tradition
- One of Slovenia's largest collections of musical instruments
- Renaissance portal and late Gothic bastion above the Drava
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