The attractions of Budapest, Hungary

    

If you're interested in visiting central or Eastern europe, you must visit Budapest. Budapest was my favorite city befor I went first time to Prague, but I'm still recomanding this city for everyone. I think it is the most beautiful and interesting city in Hungary. With its really interesting past and present.

My absolute favorite side of Budapest is the Gellert Hill and the Citadel:

Rising steeply above the capital, Gellért Hill (Gellért- hegy) seems from the Danube to be a huge cliff, al- though it is only 140 metres (430 ft.) above the level of the river. Owing to its exceptional situation, it offers a peerless panorama of the entire city. Up to the end of the nineteenth century this was the limit of the town of Buda, and the hill served as an outpost and fortress of Buda Castle. The plateau is still not fully built over: only on the southern and western slopes can we find villas. The top can be reached on foot in a good quarter of an hour from the Buda end of either Elizabeth or Liberty Bridge. The motor road starts from Elizabeth bridge, but bus 27 starting at Móricz Zsigmond körtér will also take you to the summit.

The Citadel, the fortress on top of the hill, was built between 1850 and 1854 by the despotic Habsburg authorities to control the city after the suppression of the Hungarian War of Independence. The walls in the east-west direction are 200 metres (220 yds.) long, 4 to 6 metres (13-20 ft.) high and at some points 3 metres (10 ft.) thick. In 1897 the Austrian troops left the fortress, and in 1899 the city of Budapest, which bought it, had the walls symbolically demolished -as can still be seen next to the main gate-but then it was again used to house Hungarian soldiers. During the 1944-45 siege it was from the Citadel (and from Castle Hill) that the encircled German troops kept the city under gunfire until their final surrender. Today the Citadel serves as a look-out terrace and has a restaurant. The former barracks have been converted into a tourist hostel. The Liberation Monument (the work of Zsigmond Kisfaludi Strobl) was erected in 1947 to commemorate the liberation of the country and in honour of the soldiers of the liberating Soviet Army (today we call it occupation). The female figure holding the palm of victory together with the pedestal is 40 metres (132 ft.) high. In front of it is the statue of a Soviet soldier; of the two accessory figures one vanquishes the symbolic figure of destruction and devastation, the other one raises high the torch of progress. The names of fallen Soviet soldiers are carved on the pedestal. On the. southern and western slopes below the Citadel the Jubilee Park was completed in 1965-66; from here the view extends to the semicircle of the Buda hills. Of the statues in the park mention must be made of István Kiss's relief "Budapest" and of Ferenc Medgyessy's work "St. Gerard's (Gellért's) Fountain" standing in the lower end of the park.

Read about Budapest in our travel-guide
A trip to the Budapest ZooThe best things to do in Budapest