Page 98 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Budapest

96  BUD APEST AREA B Y AREA

2 Cave Church first Hungarian king and
Sziklatemplom founder of Christianity in the
country. Inside the Chapel of
Gellért rakpart 1a. Map 4 E3. Tel (06 20) St István, it is worth pausing
775 24 72. Open 9:30am–7:30pm to look at the exquisite wood
Mon–Sat. @ 7. v 19, 47, 49, 56, 56A.
q Szent Gellért tér. carvings by Béla Ferencz. The
Cave Church can be reached
On the southern slope of through the Pauline Welcome
Gellért Hill, the entrance to this Center in the outer cave. The
grotto church is a short walk entrance fee includes an audio
from the Gellért Hotel and guide and a short film. The
Baths Complex. Based on the monastery is closed to tourists.
shrine at Lourdes, the church,
designed by Kálmán Lux, was 3 Liberation
established in 1926. The Liberation Monument, standing at the
The church was intended Monument top of Gellért Hill
for the Pauline order of monks, Felszabadulási Emlékmű
which was founded in the Map 4 D3. @ 27. base of the monument there
13th century by Eusebius of are two allegorical composi­
Esztergom. In 1934, 150 years Positioned high on Gellért tions, representing progress
after Joseph II had dissolved Hill, this imposing monument and the battle with evil.
the order in Hungary,15 friars towers over the rest of the The arrival of the Russians in
arrived back in the city from city. It was designed by the Budapest was a liberation but
exile in Poland. However, their outstanding Hungarian also the beginning of Soviet
residence lasted only until sculptor Zsigmond Kisfaludi rule. After Communism’s fall, a
the late 1950s, when the Stróbl and set up here to figure of a Russian soldier was
Communist authorities sus­ commemorate the liberation removed from the monument
pended the activities of the of Budapest by the Russian to Statue Park (see p164).
church, accusing the monks army in 1945 (see p36). The
of treasonable acts, and sealed monument was originally
the entrance to the grotto. intended to honour the 4 Citadel
The church and adjoining memory of István, son of the Citadella
monastery were reopened in Hungarian Regent Miklós
1989, when a papal blessing was Horthy, who disappeared in Map 4 D3. @ 27. Citadel: Open daily.
&
conferred on its beautiful new 1943 on the eastern front.
altar, designed by Győző Sikota. However, after the liberation After the suppression of
To the left within the grotto is a of the city by Russian troops, the uprising of 1848–9
copy of the Black Madonna of Marshal Kliment Voroshilov (see pp32–3), the Habsburgs
Czestochowa and a depiction of spotted it in the sculptor’s decided to build a fortification
a Polish eagle. Visitors will also workshop and reassigned it on this strategically important
see a painting of St Kolbe, a to this purpose. site. Constructed in 1850–54,
Polish monk who gave his life The central figure on the the Citadel housed 60 cannons,
to protect other inmates at monument is a woman holding which could, in theory, fire
Auschwitz concentration camp. aloft a palm leaf. Standing on on the city at any time. In
At the entrance to the church its pedestal, this reaches a reality, from its very inception
stands a statue of St István, the height of 14 m (46 ft). At the the Citadel did not fulfil any
real military requirements,
but served rather as a means
of intimidating the population.
The Citadel is some 220 m
(720 ft) long by 60 m (200 ft)
wide, and has walls 4 m
(12 ft) high. After peace was
agreed with the Habsburgs,
Hungarian society continually
demanded the destruction
of the Citadel, but it was not
until 1897 that the Austrian
soldiers left their barracks
here. A section of its entrance
gateway was then symbolically
ripped out.
After much discussion in
Entrance to the Cave Church, run by the Pauline order of monks the early 1960s, the Citadel

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