THE ERDŐDY MANSION was built for the owner of the surrounding estate, Count József Erdődy, on the site of Hlohovec castle in the middle of the 18th century. In the account of his travels in Upper Hungary published in 1831, Joseph Adalbert Krickel recounts his stay in Hlohovec, giving details about the riding school, the stables, the shed with thirty-two fine coaches and the theatre in which Beethoven gave a concert as a guest of the Erdődys. In the middle of the 19th century, the owner granted free public access to the garden surrounding the mansion, which housed a sizeable library as well as a collection of antiquities. A pearwood Nativity creche once owned by Thomas Bakócz, Archbishop of Esztergom (1497-1521), - and held by Erdődy tradition to have firstly belonged to King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary (1458-1490) - was set up on the Rococo altar of the mansion chapel.

Bibliography: Benczur 1846, Divald, Krickel, Lovcsányi, Luppa, Marosi, Mednyánszky 1844, Mednyánszky 1981

VÁH / Vág / Waag. A left-side tributary of the Danube, the Váh has two headstreams. The Biely Váh (White Váh) rises in the Zelené pleso Kriváňske in the High Tatras and takes on the waters of the Mlynica stream; the Čierny Váh (Black Váh) takes its source in the Nízke Tatry at Král'ova hol'a. The united headstreams become the Váh and are joined by the Belá river at Liptovský Hrádok. The river then describes arcs to the west in the Liptovská kotlina and takes on the Orava, then flows through the gorge at Kral'ovany, the Turčianska kotlina, the Malá Fatra gorge, and the breathtaking Strečno gorge to reach Žilina. There it bends southwest, and reaches the plains at Trenčín, to bend southwards again. It enters the Little Danube, and is then named Váh-Danube, takes on the Nitra river, and finally enters the Danube at Komárno. The Váh stretches over 375 km. It has always been an important natural transportation route. Its lower course is navigable but its rapid and steeply falling upper course was also used for flotage and rafting. Although there had been plans for the regulation of its course, work on it began only in the late 19th century. Since then numerous training banks and storage lakes have been constructed always with an eye to the needs of agriculture, flood-prevention, navigation and industrial energy production. It is worth noting that the look of the Váh valley has been changed to a great extent since the time it was depicted by Thomas Ender.

Bibliography: Bolgár, Konkoly, Lovcsányi, Pechány