The Danube Bend

Our last stop on our tour of the Danube Bend was Visegrad. In the mountains of Visegrad is Castle Hill which was once the royal center of Hungary. This area is rich in Hungarian history and once housed the Royal Palace. All of that was destroyed in the 1700s and was excavated in the 1930s by some archeologists.

We started off with a tour of the Visegrad Citadel. The Citadel once housed the Hungarian crown jewels. It’s quite an amazing site. The whole structure is made out of huge rocks and surrounded by a moat. There is quite a hike to the main area. The place has an amusement park like feel to it. Complete with renaissance-like décor and bow and arrow exhibits and instruments of torture. It’s a little cheesy but fun nonetheless. At the main building you can enter into the structure, which is pretty well in tact. There is also a wonderful view of the Danube and Slovakia on the other side of the River. We didn’t spend too much time here. Thirty minutes walking around and exploring is plenty of time at the Citadel.

We had lunch at the Reneszansz. This restaurant had a midievil theme to it, where the waiters and waitresses dressed in medieval clothing and served the meal, one course at a time. There was even a character playing the lute. It was very cute. The food was fantastic and it was easy to overeat. Wine was abundant and the waiting staff did a great job filling our jugs of wine.

After lunch we made our way to the Solomon’s Tower. Here, as part of the lunch, we watched a renaissance show complete with medieval fighters, bow and arrow exhibitions and staged fights. Again, it was pretty contrived but fun nonetheless.

After this long day, we headed back to Budapest. We were all pretty tired and decided to take the rest of the day easy.