STROLLING IN BUDA

BUDAPEST - APRIL 2006

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CASTLE HILL

Having left the Fishermen's Bastion, we started a stroll in the old streets of the Castle Hill, namely Fortuna - up to the Vienna Gate - Országház and Uri, before heading to Café Miró for a break!


"MATTHIAS CHURCH - The West façade of Matthias Church is amazing: starting with the turreted Bela Tower on the left, we have a huge Gothic Rosette in the middle part to finish with the impressive Matthias Bell Tower to the south"


"TOWER BELL -This is a ruin of the Dominican Church of S. Nicholas and is integrated in the Hilton Hotel"


"THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES of Hungary celebrated the 250th anniversary of its foundation in 2006. The majolica tile roof of the main building at Becsi kapu ter looked similar to St. Stephens Cathedral in Vienna"


"MARIA MAGDOLNA TOWER is the only that remains from the 13th century church of the former Buda garrison, destroyed in World War II. It was restored later (1997) and is open to the public as a lookout tower"


"TELEPHONE MUSEUM - Budapest has a museum, centred around a switchboard that still works today, to document the history of the telephone since 1881, when the first telephone centre in Hungary was established"





"BEAUTIFUL HOUSES - Some beautiful and rich houses can be found in and around Uri utca (Gentlemen's street). One of the most beautiful of them houses nowadays the German Embassy to Hungary"


"MATTHIAS CHURCH seen from the street leading to Café Miró"

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GELLERT HILL

Next day, we started the stroll at Gellert Hill!


"GELLERT HILL - From the Danube, Gellért Hill seems to be a huge cliff; however, it is only 140 metres steeply above the level of the river. Due to its location, up to the end of the nineteenth century this was the limit of the town of Buda, it offers a matchless view of the city"


"BUDA CASTLE, as seen from Gellert Hill"


"PEST, as seen from Gellert Hill"


"MONUMENT - There is an interesting story about this 14m-high female figure holding the palm of victory at the top of Gellért Hill. It was erected in 1947 to mark the liberation of the capital from the Nazis by Soviet troops (and thus named Liberation Monument). However, there is one tale related to the female figure: it’s said that ironically it was originally intended as a monument to Dictator Horthy's son, who was killed in a plane crash in 1942 on the Russian front. The Soviets, so the story goes, discovered the statue and used it. Anyhow, after the 1989/1990 political changes, the city council decided to keep the monument (without the Soviet soldier on its basis) and changed its name to Freedom Monument"



"ST. GELLÉRT - Gerard Sagredo was a bishop of Italian origin in Hungary, who was martyred in the 11th century. According to the legend the place where the statue is located is the spot from where pagans pushed the bishop, sealed in a barrel, down into the Danube. He was canonized in 1083"


"GELLÉRT HILL CAVE (on the left of the picture) is part of a network of caves within Gellért Hill and it's believed that Saint Ivan, a hermit who lived there, used the thermal water of a muddy lake next the cave to heal the sick. It is likely that the same water fed the pools of the baths now known as Gellért Baths"