Buda side - Main street to Batthyány Square

Welcome to Buda, this is the other part of the city, and now I tell some words about the name of this part of the city.

There are two different explanations for the origin of the word “Buda”.

The first one is that Buda was the brother of the famous Hun king Attila – as you know he spent a part of his life here and he died here as well.

Anyhow, there is another version as well. You remember the Roman name of the capital was Aquincum. In this word you find another Latin word ‘aqua’, which means water. The Romans had already found on the territory of our capital some of those hot springs which we still use. Than Slavic people found some of these springs again, so they called the settlement ‘Voda’, which means water in Slavic languages. We think that the present Buda may derive from this word.

I think you are already know that Buda became a royal settlement as early as the middle of the 13^th century, but it was not Budapest yet. Until the second half of the last century Buda and Pest were separate towns, we are talking about one city only since 1873. The 3^rd part of Budapest before the unification is Óbuda, Old Buda, which is located about 10 minutes from here. Old Buda is the oldest part of our capital, also lived there the Romans, and later it became the town of the queens.

So this part of the city where we are now called Water Town, because this territory is rich in water, the Celts called this part of the town AK-INK, and as I mentioned before the Romans called Aquincum. And also important to know that here there were lots of floods.

There are a few interesting details about this territory in the Roman times. They had two separated parts of their town, the civilian and the military city. It was a well-organized town and it understandable because it was the capital of Province Pannonia.

On your left hand side you can see the Parliament again on the other bank of the Danube. What you see now this is the main façade of the building.

We have arrived at Bem Square, right here on your right hand side you can see the statue of the Polish general. Joseph Bem fought against the Hapsburgs with the Hungarians during the 1848-49 War of Independence. After the defeat of the war he went into exile, becoming a Turkish citizen. He is buried in Syria.

On your left, on the other side of the square, this building is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Now we start our tour in the Main Street, which is one of the oldest roads in all Hungary. This was used by the Romans, about 2000 years ago, it was called ‘Via Romana’ and was one of the main roads of the Province Pannonia. This street was used in the 13^th century as well, when after the Mongol Invasion, King Béla IV decided to move the royal court from Esztergom (previous capital of Hungary) to Buda.

There are other names of this street during the centuries, for example Long Street, Country Street or Danube Street (this road is parallel with the river).

The first building on the right is the Chapel of St Florian which is today a Greek Catholic parish church.

The next site is the King’s Bath which was a Turkish bath and it is still used. It is a steam-bath open for men on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, for women on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays (it is closed on Sundays).

During the 145 years the Turks may have destroyed churches and other buildings as well, but during this time – the 16^th and 17^th centuries – they have built many new buildings, like steam-baths, mosques, minarets, tombs and cemeteries.

This bath was built by Szokoli Musztafa pasha and it gets water from about 2 km. This is the oldest bath in our capital.

Further on the large building on our right is the Military Court of Justice. For many years the building was a judicial center and police headquarters and was used by both the Gestapo prior to 1945 and the secret police in Hungary’s Stalinist period.

A bit further from it there is the Imre Nagy Square. As you know he was the Prime Minister during the 1956 Uprising. He was tried in secret and sentenced to death in June, 1956 in this building of Military Court of Justice.

The building on you left hand side – which frames a church – was the former alms-house. It was built for charitable purposes. Later it was given to the Sisters of Elizabeth order and has been returned to the recently.

The Church of the St Elizabeth Nuns was built in the 18^th century. Originally it belonged to the Franciscans.

In the meantime we have arrived at Batthyány Square. This is an important junction of the public transport, here is the 1^st station in Buda of the metro line number 3 (called ‘Red line’ as well) which goes under the Danube.

On your right hand side you can see the Casanova House, once it was called White Cross Inn and in the late 18^th century was a popular and elegant place of entertainment where theatrical performances were given. And according to the legend Casanova once stayed here, hence the name of the present-day night club.