MM4.Travel

Budapest – Day Twenty Five

Wednesday September 25 – our plan for the day is to go to Buda Castle, which we saw in the distance the previous night. We head back into town to catch the bus.

Bus to Buda Castle

Parts of Budapest are definitely still recovering from WW2 & being part of the Eastern Bloc. Eighty percent of Budapest was destroyed during WW2.

Crossing the Danube, looking to Chain Bridge & Matthias Church.

Buda

What is not much known about Budapest is that it is the original Super Couple. Well before other famous power couples such as Brangelina, or Bennifer; Buda and Pest had been separate cities, and in 1871 they combined to become Budapest. There was a third city that was combined at the same time Óbuda but that’s getting complicated.

Buda Castle

Buda Castle was first built in 1241, and basically since then it’s been destroyed every other century or so. The Mongolians, the Ottoman’s, the Habsburg’s, it’s accidentally burnt down twice, Hungarian Revolutionaries in 1849, and the Red Army at the end of WW2. As such it’s been rebuilt and remodelled numerous times.

The current palace was rebuilt & remodelled by the communists after the war, but they simplified it so to make it less bourgeois. Which, begs the question why would a communist rebuild a royal palace?

Now the current government wants to remove the communist-era remodelling and rebuild the castle complex to make it look like how it looked prior to the war. This should be finished in 2030.

Definitely much less bourgeois. The current building is now the national art gallery.

Much of the Castle is being totally rebuilt.

This a totally seperate building. The original palace was totally destroyed and now is being rebuilt.

Matthias Church

Along with the Fisherman’s Bastion is an Unesco World heritage site. The original church was destroyed by Genghis Khan’s grandsons in 1260. Much of the current church dates to 1470. It was converted into a mosque when the Ottoman’s conquered Hungary in 1541. It was heavily damaged in the war.

Fisherman’s Bastion

Is behind the church and faces toward the Danube. The bastion dates back to the 1700s, though they’re pretty iconic the turrets look old & they only date to 1902.

The cafe at the bastion has a great view of the parliament.

Buda

After having lunch bought from a local dairy; the decor was straight from 1970s and with a hint of eastern block joylessness; we decided to head down from the castle to Buda township.