Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
The Golden Eagle Pharmacy Museum
Arany Sas Patikamúzeum • Tárnok utca 18 • Tues-Sun 10.30am-5.30pm • 500Ft 1 375 3533,
semmel-
South from Szentháromság tér towards the palace, the
GoldenEaglePharmacy
was the first
pharmacy in Buda, established after the expulsion of the Turks, and moved to its present site
intheeighteenth century.Itsoriginal murals andfurnishingslendauthenticity todubiousnos-
trums, including the skull of a mummy used to make Mumia powder to treat epilepsy; there's
also a reconstruction of an alchemist's laboratory, complete with dried bats and crocodiles,
and other obscure exhibits such as the small, long-necked Roman glass vessel for collecting
widows' tears. Notice the portrait of the Dominican nun pharmacist - it was common prac-
tice for nuns and monks in the Middle Ages to double up as apothecaries. The
Tárnok
coffee
house, next door but one, occupies a medieval building with a Renaissance graffiti facade of
red and yellow checks and roundels and, like the street, is named after the royal treasurers
who once lived here.
Dísz tér
Both Tárnok utca and Úri utca end in
Dísz tér
(Parade Square), whose cobbled expanses
are guarded by a mournful Honvéd memorial to the dead of 1848-49. To the south lies the
scarred hulk of the old
MinistryofDefence
, to the east of which stands the
NationalDance
Theatre
(Nemzeti Táncszínház), which was a Carmelite church until the order was dissolved
by Josef II; its conversion was supervised by Farkas Kempelen, inventor of a chess-playing
automaton. It was here that the first-ever play in Hungarian was staged in 1790, and where
Beethoven performed in 1800, as the plaque on the wall denotes. The last building in the row
is the
SándorPalace
(Sándor Palota), formerly the prime minister's residence, where Premi-
er Teleki shot himself in protest at Hungary joining the Nazi invasion of Yugoslavia. It is now
theresidence ofthecountry'spresident, afigurehead whoiselected byParliament rather than
the electorate.
The Turul statue
Next door to Sándor Palace, the upper terminal of the
Sikló
funicular is separated from the
terraceoftheRoyalPalacebystatelyrailingsandtheferocious-looking
Turulstatue
-agiant
bronze eagle clasping a sword in its talons, which is visible from across the river. In Magyar
mythology, the Turul sired the first dynasty of Hungarian kings by raping the grandmother of
Prince Árpád, who led the tribes into the Carpathian Basin. The Turul also accompanied their
raids on Europe, bearing the sword of Attila the Hun in its talons. During the nineteenth cen-
tury it became a symbol of Hungarian identity in the face of Austrian culture, but wound up
being co-opted by the Habsburgs, who cast Emperor Franz Josef as a latter-day Árpád for the
next millennium. Today, the Turul has been adopted as an emblem by Hungary's right-wing
extremists.
