In this first part let’s talk about Citadella, my personal favorite, and its details. So, how to find it?

a) Taxi. It goes wherever you want it to, it shows what you want to see, but there is a good chance that the driver will show you even the northeast agglomeration area. But, at least it’s the most comfortable choice.

b) The other end of the scale is hiking / walking: according to google maps it’s 2.3 km and a bit more than a half an hour. But: Citadella is on the Buda side, which is the hilly one. And forts used to be built on the top…

c) Hop on - hop off bus: If your desire is a real tourist experience, try the hop on hop off buses, such as this or this. These sightseeing buses circulate in the city and all have Citadel as a stop. And you can also see all the main attractions at the same time, and even a tour guide or audio guide is on them.

d) BKV: with tram 47 or 49 from Deák square terminal to Szent Gellért square (this way we go through the Szabadság bridge) or with a little walk in the downtown to Ferenciek Square (for example through our most famous shopping street, Váci street) where we can take bus 7 (or 107, 233) and after 3 minutes we arrive at the Rudas Bath (via the Elizabeth Bridge). But in either way, the end is a quarter of an hour long walk up the hill.

If we could make it to the top of the Gellért Hill, Citadella unfolds before our eyes. It’s the Hungarian equivalent of Citadel, a kind of fortress, but we only use this word for this one. The building was built after the defeat of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, in the 1850s by the Habsburg dynasty as a power demonstration. The construction launched in 1851 by Julius Jacob von Haynau, a commander of the Habsburg Monarchy, and designed by Emmanuel Zitta and Ferenc Kasselik. The fortress is a U-shaped structure built about a central courtyard, being 220 meters long, 60 meters wide, and 4 meters tall and it had a complement of sixty cannons.

The unique feature of Citadella is that, unlike the usual fortresses, it wasn’t built for the purpose of protecting the city, but on the contrary: Citadel’s role was to intimidate people. The gun emplacements facing the city bear witness to this, but fortunately arms were only used for submitting salutes. After the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 and the establishment of Austria–Hungary, the Hungarians demanded the destruction of the Citadel, but the garrison troops left only in 1897, when the Citadel became the property of the 25-year-old capital and the main gate has been symbolically damaged.

photo:http://turizmus.com

From the 1960s onwards, it was intended for touristic purposes so has been transformed: hotel and restaurant were opened. Today, the monumental fortress Citadel fills multiple functions: restaurants and hotels are still operating within the thick walls, while the military history lovers can watch war wax museum reminiscent of the 1944 siege. But Citadella’s main key to its attractiveness is the view from the walls: the cityscape lies at the foot of the mountain is really breathtaking. We can see for example the Danube and its eight bridges, the Parliament, Margaret Island and Buda Castle. On the plateau and nearby are other points of interest like the Liberty Statue, Hotel Gellért, the Gellért Baths and the Gellért Hill Cave. The UNESCO declared Gellért Hill a World Heritage in 1987 along with Citadella, the panorama of Buda Castle Hill and the two banks of the Danube.

photo:latvany-terkep.hu