Castle District - Buda

Budapest is actually a city that combined two different city along the Danube River. One city was called Buda and was located on the south side of the river. Pest was located on the northern banks of the river. At some point in time, they joined to make the city we know today. Hungary has a long history of various invaders and rulers taking over their country. The Mongols (remember Ghengis Khan I wrote about a couple of years ago???) made it out this far in their quest for dominance. The Castle district was really established when the royal court moved her in the 15th century. Buda, the side of the city with the castle became one of Europe's most influential cities. Of course, things couldn't remain that way so the Turks invaded followed by the Austrians. Little was left of the district when they were through. However, the Hungarians are definitely stubborn and they began reconstruction immediately, however, WWII again destroyed the area. It has been reconstructed in the same style and with many of the architectural features from the medieval city. 

The first two pictures here are of a long wall at the top of the hill, following the course of the river. It's called the Fisherman's Bastion. The story goes that the wall was built to defend the castle. The fishermen, who spent the day on the river below, were in the right place to run up the hill to defend it if foreign forces were to arrive. It's actually very picturesque, both the structure and views. There are seven turrets along the wall, representing each of the seven tribes of the Hungarians. 

The last picture here is a picture of Matthias Church, taken from the top of the Bastion. The tile work on the various churches is outstanding - the amount of work to create and place all of these tiles is unbelievable. The color is spectacular - sorry it didn't come out better in the photo.