Did you know the oldest geocache in Hungary is hidden in Hungary’s newest castle? FakeCastle does not try to protect itself from what is real. Even though it looks real, the castle is completely fake, but why? What’s the story behind this castle, and most importantly—what do you need to find the geocache there?

Old caches are rare in geocaching, and new castles are no different. Skeptical cache owners saw an opportunity here and claimed the place as one of Hungary’s strange oddities. Tucked away in the woods north of Budapest is a castle built as a filming location for the film Stars of Eger—and for our purposes, a series of other geocaching adventures.

Approaching the castle, the masonry appears destroyed as if from another time. Arches, cobblestones and archer’s windows were built throughout the structure to represent Eger Castle, a film location representing the famous battle. Navigating with your compass, you can choose to make your way through the maze of tunnels and chambers to search for ‘RealCache’ in ‘FakeCastle.’

There are rumors that someone high in this ‘Fake Kingdom’ loves birds and hid a Fake Bird House in the forest where they keep their journals. Until now, you can still find journals in it. Once you get within a few meters of the geocache, you are surrounded by trees; an old birdhouse sits low under a tree.

Luckily, birds can’t get inside to make nests, preventing non-geocachers from disturbing the geocaches that are now there. The birdhouse has rotted from 24 years of publication and also from the 1,800 geocachers who discovered the cache over the years.

Inside is a container, some SWAG, and a notebook to solidify your findings. This castle is worth exploring on your way out—except this time, you learn a secret that no one else there might know: there’s a geocache in the shadows of this strange structure, and you found it!

Continue exploring some of the most amazing geocaches around the world.
See all the Geocaches of the Week on the Geocaching blog. If you would like to nominate a Geocache of the Week, fill out this form.