The first permanent bridge between Buda and Pest, and the thing that made them one city.
Before 1849 there was no permanent bridge here. Crossing meant a boat, or in winter a pontoon bridge that was removed when the ice came, or walking across the frozen river and hoping. Buda and Pest were two towns facing each other, and the river was the reason they stayed two towns.
The story that started the bridge is well worn but true enough to repeat. Count István Széchenyi was delayed for over a week by ice and weather trying to cross to his father’s funeral. He spent much of the next decade making a permanent crossing happen: he raised the money, brought in the English engineer William Tierney Clark to design it and the Scottish engineer Adam Clark — no relation — to build it. It opened in 1849, and Buda, Pest and Óbuda were formally united into Budapest twenty-four years later. The bridge came first and the city followed.
The lions
Four stone lions by János Marschalkó sit at the ends. A persistent Budapest story says the sculptor drowned himself in shame because he forgot to give them tongues. He did not; he lived another twenty-odd years, and the lions do have tongues, just not visible from the roadway. It is a good story that survives entirely on its own merits.
1945 and after
The retreating German army blew every bridge in Budapest in January 1945. The Chain Bridge was rebuilt and reopened in 1949, on the hundredth anniversary of its first opening — an occasion the new government was happy to make something of. It was comprehensively restored again between 2021 and 2023, and it now carries less traffic and more pedestrians than it used to.
Walking it
Cross on foot, going west to east, in the hour before dark. Behind you Buda Castle and the Royal Palace are floodlit on the hill; ahead the lights of Pest; to your left the Parliament coming into view along the embankment. At the Buda end, the tunnel under Castle Hill lines up exactly with the bridge, which locals have joked about for a century — the tunnel is said to be where the bridge is stored when it rains.
More Landmarks
The Hungarian Parliament Building
The third-largest parliament building in the world, put up for a country that was about to lose two-thirds of its territory.
Fisherman's Bastion
A neo-Romanesque viewing terrace that has never defended anything, built purely so that Budapest could be looked at properly.
St Stephen's Basilica
Hungary's largest church, holding the mummified right hand of the king who converted the country.