The Buda Castle [antikvár]

the view of the castle and its románcéIf Budapest is the pearl of the Danube, The Buda Castle is the shine of it, The place sparlcling in the sunshine.Foreigners say that Budapest is a pearl cast on the shore of the Danube. In the course of our history we always recorded the appreciative words of our guests with pleasure and have carefully preserved their acknowledgements. We know that the fame of King Sigismund's Friss Palace was known throughout Europe in the 14th century, and the Gothic and Renaissance palace of King Matthias earned the acknowledgement of the greatest Italian masters of the age. The great luxury, the artistry and splendour dazzled the eyes of the admirers of the ancient Buda Castle. It remained beautiful even at the time of the decline of central power, when the royal household was no longer main-tained lavishly. The crumbling Castle which feli into the hands of the Turks following the disaster at Mohács must have been beautiful still, because it elicited exclamations of rapture even from the noted Turkish traveller Evha Chelebi, who came with the hostile Turkish forces. He spoke of Buda as the golden apple of the Ottoman Empire, and because of its red roofed houses he always referred to it as a beautiful red apple. He walked to the top of Rose Hill, he climbed Gellért Hill only to admire the lines of the Castle walls from different angles. The conquerors grew fond of it but they could not halt its disintegration. Its walls were battered by sieges, rocked by earthquakes and blasted by exploding powder magazines; all this contributed to the ruin of the Castle. When Buda was recaptured