Architecture Budapest

The Halászbástya

What looks like a fortress is actually a viewing terrace from around 1900.

2 min readHalászbástya

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1895, the start of construction. What you see here is the old fortress wall, over which the decorative terraces were later built.

What looks like a medieval rampart is really a viewing terrace, built between 1895 and 1902.

It belongs to the wave of building with which Hungary celebrated its thousand-year existence, the same years in which was restored, a metro line was laid through the city, and rose at the edge of . led that restoration too, and he had a single aim here: to give the stroller somewhere to look out from, with the arches framing the view. As a defence it never amounted to anything.

The seven towers stand for the who brought the Hungarians to this plain in 895, led by the clan from the legend. That kind of reference runs all through the district, because the whole project was meant to show that the country had belonged here for a thousand years already.

The name comes from below. Along the foot of this wall lay the fishing town by the river, with its fish market, and in the Middle Ages the fishermen's guild was responsible for defending this very stretch of the city wall. Those men sold fish, and when war came they stood on the ramparts.

The square with the column lies a few steps further on, and that is where we end the walk.

Map showing Halászbástya, Szentháromság tér, 1014 Budapest, Hongarije
Halászbástya, Szentháromság tér, 1014 Budapest, HongarijeBudapest
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Sources. Story: Wikipedia, Halászbástya and Frigyes Schulek; Magyar Kereskedelmi és Vendéglátóipari Múzeum, description of the structure via the Hungarian National Digital Archive Photos: Unknown photographer, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

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