Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
derground. This was the eighty-sixth time that the Vár had been ravaged and rebuilt over
seven centuries, rivalling the devastation caused by the recapture of Buda from the Turks in
1686. It was this repeated destruction that caused the melange of styles characterizing the
hill. Adding to the mix, the neo-Gothic
Mátyás Church
and
Fishermen's Bastion
are ro-
mantic nineteenth-century evocations of medieval glories, interweaving past and present na-
tional fixations. The plain exterior of the Royal Palace, an uninspiring reconstruction of the
prewar behemoth that stood here, fails to evoke any such glory. Here, it's what is inside that
matters: two major museums, the
Hungarian National Gallery
, and the
Budapest History
Museum
, as well as the
National Széchenyi Library
.
Szentháromság tér
The obvious starting point is
Szentháromság tér
(Holy Trinity Square), the historic heart of
the district, named after an ornate
Trinity Column
erected in 1713 in thanksgiving for the
abatement of a plague; a scene showing people dying from the Black Death appears on the
plinth. To the southwest stands the former
TownHall
, Buda having been a municipality until
its unification with Pest and Óbuda in 1873; note the corner statue of Pallas Athene, bearing
Buda's coat of arms on her shield.
STREET LIFE
The
streets of the Vár
to the north of the palace still follow their medieval courses,
with Gothic arches and stone carvings half-concealed in the courtyards and passages of
eighteenth-century Baroque houses, whose facades are embellished with fancy ironwork
grilles. For many centuries, residence here was a privilege granted to religious or ethnic
groups, each occupying a specific street. This pattern persisted through the 145-year-long
Turkish occupation, when Armenians, Circassians and Sephardic Jews established them-
selves under the relatively tolerant Ottomans. The liberation of Buda by a multination-
al Christian army under Habsburg command was followed by a pogrom and ordinances
restricting the right of residence to Catholics and Germans, which remained in force for
nearly a century. Almost every building here displays a stone
műemlék
(listed)
plaque
giv-
ing details of its history (in Hungarian), and a surprising number are still homes rather than
embassies or boutiques - there are even a couple of schools and corner shops. At dusk,
whenmost ofthetourists haveleft, pensioners walk their dogsandtoddlers playinthelong
shadows of Hungarian history.
Mátyás Church
Mátyás templom • I, Szentháromság tér • Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat 9am-1pm, Sun 1-5pm • 1200Ft, audio-guide
500Ft • Tickets from the office across the road by the Fishermen's Bastion • Mass is celebrated daily at 7.30am
and 6pm, and on Sun at 10am (in Latin with a full choir), noon and 6pm • 1 355 5657,
matyas-templom.hu
