Castle Hill contains nearly all of the city’s important monuments and
museums, as well as affording a wonderful view of Pest
across the Danube. There are two parts to the place; Old
Town, where people lived in the
Middle Ages, and the Royal Palace.
The Old Town
is filled with attractively painted houses, decorative churches and the famous
Fishermen's Bastion, built as a viewing platform in 1905. It was named after
the guild of fishermen responsible for defending this stretch of wall in the
Middle Ages. It has commanding views over the city, and is dominated by seven
gleaming turrets, representing the seven Magyar tribes who entered the Carpathian
Basin in the 9th century and a
statue of St Stephen on horseback.
Royal Palace
Burned, bombed, razed, rebuilt and redesigned at least six times over the
past seven centuries, the Royal Palace
is now an 18th- & early 20th-century reconstruction.
A good place to visit is the Turkish Ceremony, accessed by walking through
the Ferdinand Gate and past the Mace Tower.
The palace gardens are also a great place to relax. The Palace contains a
number of museums, including Hungarian National Gallery, with a huge Hungarian
art section, the Széchenyi National Library and the Budapest
History Museum.
City Park
The entrance to City Park
is Heroes' Square, which has the nation's most solemn monument. It is an empty
coffin, representing one of the unknown freedom fighters from the 1956
Uprising, beneath a stone tile. Also visit the Millenary
Monument, a 120ft pillar backed by
colonnades. To the north of the square is the Museum
of Fine Arts, which houses the
city's outstanding foreign works, while to the south is the ornate Palace
of Art.
Gellért Hill
The climb up this hill is worth it as it affords a panoramic view of the Royal
Palace, the Danube
and its bridges. The Citadella, a fortress of sorts, and the Independence
Monument top the hill. The Gellért
Hotel is a kind of Art Nouveau palace and the city's favorite old-world hotel.
There is an impressive spa open to the public. Visiting it is like taking a
soak in a cathedral. A few minutes northeast of Elizabeth
Bridge are the Rudas baths, with an
octagonal pool, domed cupola, colored glass and massive columns, but it is
restricted to males only.