Horváth M. Ferenc (szerk.): Vác The heart of the Danube Bend. A historical guide for residents and globetrotters (Vác, 2009)
Tartalom
152 THE 19TH CENTURY - THE CENTURY OF GREAT CHANGES fishermen's barges with the fish-holder barks tied alongside, while the fishing nets are hung on the trees on the bank and the golden-red fish soup is being cooked at their feet. The end of the 19th century is the start of a new phase in the relationship between the Danube bank and the town dwellers. The Promenade becomes a place of relaxation, an enjoyable way of spending leisure time together. The river becomes more and more popular as a place for bathing and sports, and the better-off civil servants build houses and villas on the riverside. Let us take the trouble now to climb up the spire of the cathedral. The photograph taken of the town from here in 1898 shows that the area beyond the railway is still not built-up, Széchenyi Street has not been built up as far as the railway station yet, there is no Deákvár, the Naszály Hill is nearly untouched, and there are only a few factories settled on the vast area of the market place (of which only about half can be seen). They are the first repre-View of the town from the Calvary sentatives of the industrial area that will surround the town later, as most of the manufactures of the 1860s are settled inside the town. Calvary Hill and the Calvary built by János Schick offers us another high point to look around, from where we can see the chapel below us and cultivated lands all around. Farther away is the cavalrymen's barrack built in 1894, with a huge riding ground outside. Eastwards, in the direction of Bácska Field and Papvölgy there are a few villas, among others Mihály Bauer's Bagolyvár ("Owl's Castle") and the Sulyok Villa, the first buildings of the new district of the town, Deákvár, were developed around the end of the century. Coming from Pest, we can find out that we are near Vác when we catch sight of the steeple of Seven Chapels Church and the (still) single-storey parsonage. Let's take a walk here like our contemporaries did in 1846. According to their report "it is the women's favourite place, they come for a walk here early every morning, and especially in the afternoons of [public] holidays when regular services are fietó/'The nearby Derecske Field and Lake are already popular places at this time, and they become even more so when in the mid-1880s trees are planted and a park is formed in the flood area. First it is called Csávolszky Park, later Elizabeth Grove. Another form of entertainment is available from 1899 onwards on the first lawn-tennis court run by the Sports Association of Vác. Derecske Lake - previously used for fish breeding - becomes the regular place of the Ice-skating Association of Vác in 1887. In the 1870s this sport is still pursued on the mill-and fishpond of the bishopric, while later Derecske Lake provides facilities for ice-skating as well as changing rooms and a place to warm up. Let us stop to pay our respect at the first monument to the revolutionary soldiers ("honvéd") of The "Honvéd" Monument of 1848
