Károly Lookout Tower, Sopron

Both the Károly Lookout and the 398 m high Károly Hill itself are in memory of Károly Romwalter, a printer and publisher from Sopron, who built the first lookout at this site in 1876.

When the wooden structure became old, the city planners decided in 1902 that it would be too expensive to repair, and so they built a stone lookout "in keeping with the dignity of the place". However, construction was not completed until 1936, when the bank in which the money raised from donations for the lookout had been deposited went bankrupt. The final plans were drawn up by Oskar Winkler - the lookout tower, built of natural stone, is 23 m high. The "new" lookout was inaugurated on 12 June 1936.

After the Second World War, the building was taken over by the city council. From 23 December 1959, until the construction of the new TV tower, the Sopron TV station operated here, but it continued to serve as a lookout. After much turmoil, the Károly Lookout was only returned to the Sopron Town Planning Association in 1996.

Later that year, the association carried out the most urgent renovations and opened a permanent exhibition on the first floor of the building, called the Botanists' Sanctuary. The guides and short descriptions give a comprehensive overview of the work of Pál Kitaibel, Endre Gombocz and Zoltán Kárpáti. The walls are decorated with paintings by Vera Csapody, who immortalised the plants that Kitaibel and Ferenc Waldstein had created. On 27 March 2002, Béla Turi-Kovács, Minister of the Environment, opened the second exhibition in the Observatory, which presents the work of Vera Csapody, Gyula Roth and Oszkár Winkler.

The lookout can be visited for an entrance fee, and from the top level there is a beautiful view of the town and the Sopron Hills. In good weather you can see Bratislava beyond the Fertő, the Ság to the east and the Schneeberg to the west.