Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
also embodied civic endurance, having been inaugurated only weeks after Hungary lost the
1849 War of Independence, when Austrian troops tried and failed to destroy it.
However, in 1945, the Wehrmacht dynamited all of Budapest's bridges in a bid to check
the Red Army. Their reconstruction was one of the first tasks of the postwar era, and the re-
opening of the Lánchíd on the centenary of its inauguration (Nov 21) was heralded as proof
that life was returning to normal, even as Hungary was becoming a Communist dictatorship.
Today, the bridge is once again adorned with the national coat of arms rather than Soviet
symbols. A positive development in recent years has been its closing to traffic for up to ten
weekends over the summer for popular festivities.
The idea for a bridge came to
Count István Széchenyi
after he was late for his father's fu-
neral in 1820 because bad weather had made the Danube uncrossable. Turning his idea into
reality was to preoccupy him for two decades, and it became the centrepiece of a grand plan
to modernize Hungary's communications. Owing to Britain's industrial pre-eminence and
Széchenyi's Anglophilia, the bridge was designed by
William Tierney Clark
(who based
it on his earlier plan for Hammersmith Bridge in London) and constructed under the super-
vision of a Scottish engineer,
Adam Clark
(no relation), from components cast in Britain.
BesidesthetechnicalproblemsoferectingwhatwasthenthelongestbridgeinEurope(nearly
380m), there was also the attempt by the Austrians to blow it up - which Adam Clark per-
sonally thwarted by flooding its chain-lockers. He also dissuaded a Hungarian general from
setting it alight in 1849.
Whereas Széchenyi died in an asylum, Clark settled happily in Budapest with his Hungarian
wife. After his death, he was buried on the spot that now bears his name, though his remains
were subsequently moved to Kerepesi Cemetery. Adam Clark also built the
tunnel
(
alagút
)
under the Vár - another Széchenyi project - which Budapestis joked could be used to store
the new bridge when it rained.
Szilágyi Dezső tér
Heading north from the Chain Bridge, you come to
Szilágyi Dezső tér
, a square infamous
for the events that occurred here in January 1945. When Eichmann and the SS had already
fled,theArrowCrossmassacred hundredsofBudapest'sJewsanddumpedtheirbodiesinthe
river; an inconspicuous plaque commemorates the victims. From here, you can make a brief
detour left up Vám utca, just north of the square, to see the
IronBlock
, a replica of a wooden
block into which itinerant apprentices once hammered nails for good luck (the original is in
a museum).
Batthyány tér
The main square and social hub of the Víziváros,
Batthyány tér
is named after the
nineteenth-century prime minister, Lajos Batthyány, but it started out as Bomba tér (Bomb
Square) after an ammunition depot sited here for the defence of the Danube. Today, it's busy
