The Protection Bastion received its roof and lookout level for the 2000 millennium celebrations. From here, you can get a good look at the surroundings as well as today's village. Although they used to build roofs over the towers in the old days too, these were dismantled during sieges due to their fire hazard, and were only rebuilt in peacetime.
The defensive work was probably completed in the earlier phase of the castle's construction, and in later eras, they tried to utilize it as best as possible.
The special feature of the bastion is that after the unsuccessful Turkish siege of 1626, the captain of the castle at the time, Pál Esterházy, placed a memorial plaque on its side to commemorate the victory. The plaque was lost over time, but the search for it is currently in progress; fortunately, its text has survived in several sources. Esterházy's victory, however, unworthily sank into the darkness of oblivion… Everyone in Hungary has heard of the 1552 siege of Eger, but almost no one knows about the 1626 siege of Nógrád, even though the same thing happened here: after 3 weeks of intensive siege, the Turkish army retreated, unable to take the castle.
Our task now is to place this event into the public consciousness. At the end of your visit, on your way down from the castle, you will see the former place of the plaque in the upper third of the bastion: a reminder that there is still plenty to uncover and make known from the castle's past.
For now, however, we continue the guided tour; 3 stations remain. Leaving the Protection Bastion via the stairs, please follow the wall and then the railing to the corner, to the site of the former Fox Bastion.