The medieval town on top of Castle Hill, where a few thousand people live behind baroque fronts on cobbled streets.
Castle Hill is a limestone plateau about a kilometre and a half long, and the town on top of it is older than the palace at its southern end. Béla IV moved his people up here after the Mongols destroyed the settlements below in 1241, and the street plan has not changed much since.
The buildings look baroque and mostly are, on the outside. Behind the eighteenth-century fronts, many are medieval — and if you look into the gateways along Úri utca and Országház utca you will see sedilia, the pointed Gothic niches built into the sides of the entrance passages. Nobody is certain what they were for: seats for waiting servants, or market stalls, or something ceremonial. They are the district’s real signature and most visitors never notice them.
Walking it
The tourist axis runs from the funicular up Tárnok utca to Szentháromság tér, Matthias Church and the Fisherman’s Bastion, and it is crowded most of the day. One block west, Úri utca — Gentlemen’s Street — is quiet, residential and full of the good doorways. At its end, the Tóth Árpád promenade runs along the western rampart under chestnut trees, with the Buda hills in front of you and almost nobody on the benches.
North of Matthias Church, the streets around Bécsi kapu tér, the Vienna Gate, are quieter again. The Mary Magdalene Tower there is all that survived of a church destroyed in the war; it can be climbed.
Underneath
The Labyrinth of caves runs under the hill and parts are open to visitors, along with the separately run Hospital in the Rock.
Getting up and down
Bus 16 comes all the way up and is the least effort. The funicular is charming and slow with a long queue. Walking up the stepped path beside it takes twelve minutes. Coming down, walk — the path towards the Chain Bridge gives you the river as you descend, and there is a lift on the Dózsa György tér side if you would rather not.
Very few restaurants up here are good value; eat before you come up or after you go down.
