Fisherman's Bastion

The story

In 1896 Hungary celebrated the thousandth year since the Magyar tribes came over the Carpathians. Budapest built for the party: the first underground railway on the continent, the Parliament, Heroes' Square, and this.

The architect Frigyes Schulek had just restored the church next door. He built the bastion as a frame for it: a lookout terrace in white limestone, with stairs, arcades and seven pointed towers, one for each of the seven Magyar tribes.

The name is older than the building. In the Middle Ages the guild of fishermen, who lived in the Water Town below, had to defend this stretch of the castle wall.

What is here

The lower terraces, the arcades, the stairs and the statue of Stephen are free at all hours. The upper turrets charge a small fee during the day and are free early in the morning and in the evening. Matthias Church has its own ticket.

If you have one minute

On the terrace, between the towers

Look across the river. The Parliament fills the far bank. Below you, the Danube, and to the right the Chain Bridge. This is why people come.

Turn round. Matthias Church has a roof of coloured glazed tiles in diamond patterns, made by the Zsolnay works of Pécs. Its tall tower is Gothic, from the 1400s, rebuilt by Schulek.

Between the church and the bastion rides King Stephen, the first king of Hungary, crowned in the year 1000. Alajos Stróbl made the statue in 1906.

Things people often get wrong

"It is a medieval fortress." It was finished in 1902 and was always meant as a viewpoint. Its towers are not even tall enough to defend.

"You must pay to go up." The lower terraces and the arcades are free at all hours. Only the upper turrets charge a small fee in the day.

"Matthias Church is named after Saint Matthias." It is the Church of Our Lady. Hungarians call it after King Matthias, who married twice here and added its tower.

People who stood here

We searched Hungarian and English sources for this list.

• Frigyes Schulek (Hungarian architect, 1841–1919)He spent twenty years restoring Matthias Church and seven building the bastion.
• Franz Joseph and Elisabeth ("Sisi")On 8 June 1867 they were crowned king and queen of Hungary in Matthias Church. The deal behind it, the Compromise, made the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.
• Franz Liszt (Hungarian composer)He wrote the Hungarian Coronation Mass for that day, and it was first played in the church at the coronation.
• King Matthias CorvinusHe was married here twice, in 1463 and 1476, and gave the church its tower.
• Charles IV and Zita, the last king and queen of HungaryThey were crowned here on 30 December 1916, in the middle of the First World War. Two years later the monarchy was gone.
• John Hunyadi (Hungarian general, father of Matthias)His statue stands at the foot of the Schulek stairs. His victory at Belgrade in 1456 is remembered at noon in churches across the world.

Go deeper: six stops, from the stairs to the coronation church

Come at sunrise if you can. The terraces face east, and before nine they are almost empty.

1. The Schulek stairs

From the Water Town below, a broad stair climbs to the bastion. At its foot John Hunyadi stands in armour. Climbing it you see the bastion grow above you, as Schulek intended: a stage set seen from the river.

2. The lower terraces and the arcades

The cloister-like walk runs along the wall with round arches, each framing a piece of Pest. The style mixes Romanesque and Gothic, the styles of the first Hungarian kings, as Schulek imagined them.

3. The seven towers

The towers have cone roofs like tents. That is deliberate: they recall the tents of the nomad Magyars who came from the east. The seven tribes were Nyék, Megyer, Kürtgyarmat, Tarján, Jenő, Kér and Keszi.

The glass wall of the Hilton hotel, built in 1976 around the ruins of a medieval Dominican church, reflects the towers. Many in Budapest still dislike it.

4. King Stephen

The first king rides with a double cross, the sign of the apostolic kings of Hungary. On the pedestal, reliefs show scenes from his life. Stephen made Hungary a Christian kingdom; his crown is in the Parliament across the river.

5. Matthias Church

Inside, every surface is painted: walls, pillars and vaults in patterns of red, green and gold. The paintings are of the 1890s, by Károly Lotz and Bertalan Székely, and imagine what a medieval Hungarian church looked like.

Under the Ottomans, from 1541 to 1686, the church was the city's chief mosque. Its paintings were whitewashed. In 1686, during the siege, a wall fell and a hidden statue of the Virgin was revealed; the story is in the legends.

6. The view, and the same years in China

Stay until the lights come on. The Parliament across the river turns gold, then the bridges, then the bastion behind you.

The bastion was built in the years after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894–95, during the reign of the Qing (1644–1912) emperor Guangxu (1875–1908). When Hungary was celebrating its thousand years in 1896, Li Hongzhang was travelling through Europe to study its railways and factories.