Category Archives: castle

Royal Palace/ Buda Castle

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, castle, Hungary, Modern History

Buda Castle with an Avalon river cruise ship

Once upon a time, there were 2 cities across from each other on the Danube River. Buda was the royal capital with its old hilltop castle, and narrow winding cobbled streets. Pest was more modern with a vibrant commercial centre. It has grand boulevards, scintillating night life, and complete independence from Buda. They remained separate cities until they were amalgamated in 1873 with a third city, Óbuda. The merged cities were then united under the name Budapest. Óbuda got left out in the naming department. A bridge was then built across the Danube River called Chain Bridge. After that bridge was built the cities cooperated more with each other and each benefit from the merger. As a unit the city became a major European city.

 

On our city tour of Budapest, we drove by the Buda Castle, on the Buda side of the Danube. but I got most of my photos of it, from the Pest side of the river. Our bus really drove too close to get good photos. Photographing buildings requires standing away from it. But then, of course, other buildings often intrude.

 

Located on the aptly named Castle Hill, Buda Castle was constructed in 1259 to be the residence of Hungarian kings, but much of the structure we see today was added in the mid-18th century.  It is nearly 1,000 years old. Today, the castle houses the Budapest History Museum and the Hungarian National Gallery. The building, along with much of Castle Hill, is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We did not get to go inside this day, and sadly, I was not able to get to it the next day either. A dreadful pity.

 

The National Gallery, which is now part of the Buda Castle, contains the largest public collection of Hungarian fine art in the world. The museum is housed within the Royal Palace and displays a wide assortment of Hungarian art work from the medieval period up to the 20th century. It also contains the best collection of European art in the country.

 

I have been told that the art collection included approximately 6,000 paintings, 2,100 sculptures, 3,100 medals, 11,000 drawings, 5,000 prints, but has now been expanded to include even more art.

 

 

This was the castle where the Hungarian Kings—those “heroes of Heroes’ Square—lived and conducted their kingly business. Of course, there have been many changes in millennium of its existence.

Today the castle also houses the Budapest Historical Museum and the National Széchényi Library all worthy elements of Western Civilization.

 

The Baroque palace that now occupies most of the site was built between 1749 and 1769, and like so many other wonderful buildings in the city was pummelled in World War by the modern barbarians. The reconstruction was started by the next barbarians—the Communist government during the communist era.

 

 

The castle was required by King Sigismund when he was the Holy Roman Emperor.  Emperor’s need castles. Like peasants need hovels. In fact, he needed a magnificent castle, just like Donald Trump needs a magnificent White House.  Unfortunately, the current president of the United States has a rather tacky taste. During the reign of King Sigismund it became the largest Gothic Palace of the late Middle Ages.

 

After the Battle of Mohács in 1526, which I posted about earlier, the Kingdom of Hungary collapsed and the Ottoman Turks occupied the town which had been evacuated. The town of Buda was then sacked and burned but the Royal Palace was not damaged. Of course, the victor, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, who I also posted about earlier, carried away the best bronze statues and carried them off to Constantinople. Unfortunately, that is where they were destroyed in a rebellion a few years later. Look out if you hang around kings. Showing himself to be a learned man however, the Sultan also carried away many volumes from the library. Then the Ottomans left, but returned once more in 1529 and this time made sure that the palace was badly damaged. Again, remember what kings do. Buda then became formally, a part of the Ottoman empire.  The original German and Hungarian population had vanished by then, for their own good.

 

In 1686 the Holy League, a coalition of Christian European nations was formed during the war with Turkey for the purposes of stopping the expansion of the Ottoman empire into Europe. It was very successful at that, though the costs were high. Large areas of ceded land, were recovered during this time. It was often called the “14th Crusade.” This period was a great turning point in European history that diminished the Ottoman empire and propelled the coalition European partners to greater glories. At least that was how they perceived it.

 

Much of the damage to Buda and its buildings was caused by Europeans that were led by Habsburgs because they repeatedly laid siege to the city to try to get it back from the Ottomans. For imperial purposes any damage is justified. They had launched sieges in 1542, 1598, 1603 and 1684, before the finally victory in 1686. The old palace was destroyed during that final siege in 1686. The army of the Holy League was about 65,000 to 100,000 men at that time. Some of the buildings were used by the Turks to store gunpowder, and went hit by the Europeans artillery they blew up and caused considerable damage.

 

The new Ottoman government allowed the palace to go to ruin. They used the barracks as a storage place for stuff and stables for animals. Other than that, they didn’t even use it. But they called it, the Palace of the Golden Apples. Perhaps because the horses liked them.

 

In the 19th century, after Franz Joseph was crowned King of Hungary peace was declared between the nation of Hungary and the Habsburg empire. During this time the city of Buda experienced rapid economic growth and a lot of attention was paid to the castle and restoring it to be comparable with Vienna’s grand Hofburg Palace which Christiane and I toured during our visits to Vienna.

 

In the Second World War the castle was occupied by the Nazis, who lived in it lavishly. Then the Russians laid a modern siege to the palace near the end of World II, and it was damaged some more. During the time of the communist regime much of it was deliberately destroyed by the communists who saw it as contrary to their image of Soviet communists. They represented the people, not the royalty.

 

After communism collapsed, the new government of Hungary tried to restore much of it. Now of course, it is under siege by tourists—like us.

 

All of this occupation by barbarians caused an enormous amount of destruction, but the people of Hungary repeatedly rebuilt it.

 

Ilok Castle, Croatia

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, castle, Croatia

 

After sampling the wines, we returned to the boat. Although I did not have enough time to see the village, I did manage to sneak outside for a very brief view of Ilok Castle, or as some called it, the Odescalchi Castle. It is an impressive on a hill in the middle of town  built on the foundations of the castle of King Nikola Iločki from the 15th century . I managed to take a few photos of it.

 

The castle was built in the 15th century by Nicholas of Ilok a Croatian viceroy and king of Bosnia. We did not visit Bosnia-Herzegovina this year, which I did see the last time we were in the Balkans. It is another of those states that was created when Yugoslavia disintegrated and needless to say, a lots of serious warfare happened there. Many lives were lost in those battles.

The Ottoman Turks conquered Ilok in the 16th century but the Austrian Hungarians recaptured it in the Battle of Vienna in 1683. As a result, the grateful Emperor Leopold I granted the castle to Livio Odescalchi, the nephew of Pope Innocent XI who was also a member of the powerful Odescalchi family. That family reconstructed the castle in the Baroque style in the 18th century. The Yugoslavian government (communist at the time) nationalized the castle in 1945. Apparently, the wine cellars are among the most famous in Croatia, and we never got to sample any of the wine from there. Sometimes, life sucks.

Bran Castle: am I a closet aristocrat lover?

2025 Cruise up the Danube River, castle

 

In the evening we went on another excursion, this time to the world-famous Bran castle of Romania.

 

This was our third castle in 2 days and I loved each one in its own way.  Am I a closet aristocrat lover? My ‘man of the people’ street creds were by then in absolute shambles. How can I possibly be so interested in the aristocracy?  The last time in my blog and asked if I was a hypocrite one of my closest friends automatically replied, ‘of course you are!” So I won’t ask it again.

 

We had all been warned yesterday by Chris the cruise director to consider carefully whether or not we should go into the castle. He made the dangers perfectly clear. Ominously clear. A number of people in our group had suffered serious falls that led to injuries. I had seen some of the walking wounded. Chris said some of the stairs in the castle were without railings.

Fortunately, we got a good view of Bran Castle from the bottom, looking up. We could still see it and photograph it.

Bran Castle (Castelul Bran) was hyped as the legendary Dracula’s castle and some of our friends were excited about that and then were later disappointed when there was no truth to the myth.  Actually, Dracula’s castle was an entirely fictional castle, which many tend to forget.  It was not mentioned in the book and there is no evidence the author ever set inside it.  In the book the castle does not even bear any resemblance to the real castle. Really, tourists were sold fantasy or nonsense.  And they were gullible. The real story is actually much more interesting than the fantasy.

 

That of course does not detract from the fact that it has been marketed as Dracula’s castle. The claims that it was owned by Dracula are based on a desire to extract dollars from gullible tourists.

Bran castle is named after the town in which it is located. It was built in 1377 by the Saxons who emigrated here from Germany. King Louis I of Hungary allowed the construction and now it is a world-famous monument and landmark in Transylvania..

Some members of our group went to take a look at the interior, but Christiane and I joined friends on the bottom of the hill for a jovial get together.

The original castle built on the site was made of wood and was destroyed by Mongols in 1242. It was built as a fortified structure at the entrance to the mountain pass where traders passed through for more than a century. It was built mainly for fortification against attacks by the Turks, but it was also used to collect tolls or tariffs. Trump was not the first monarch to collect those. The castle was of course fought over from time to time by lords in the area. The castle played a militarily strategic role right up to the middle of the 18th century. It became a home for royals after the treaty was signed ending the First World War, because the Saxons who owned it no longer had a military use for it and did not wish to pay the costs of upkeep anymore. The castle was old and always in need of repairs like most old homes. Even castle suffer the vagaries of time.

It was for a time the favourite retreat of Marie of Romania who paid for extensive renovations. It was inherited by her daughter Ileana who ran a hospital there in World War II. After that war it was seized by the communists who expelled the royal family in 1948. In 2005, after the Communists were out of power, it was given to the Archduke Dominic, a son of Princess Ileana. Ownership was challenged from time to time, but eventually settled that it was owned by the Hapsburg family. In June of 2009 the Hapsburg family (who are still around) opened the refurbished castle to the public as the first private museum in the country and made an agreement with the village of Bran to maintain it as a tourist facility.