Szatmári Gizella: Walks in the Castle District - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2001)

The siege of Buda seen from the east, 1684 (engraving by Wening based on Hallart)

The Royal Court—Magna Curia as it was called in Latin, or Kammerhof as the German version went— was near the Sabbath Gate, within the burghers’ town.

After taking Buda in 1541, the Turks built outer walls on the west. The Tower of Pasha Karakas was erected by the western corner of the palace dating back to the time of King Sigismund, while the bastion of Pasha Ká- szim was by the Fehérvár Gate. To the north of these, following one another, stood the Sour Soup Bastion, the Tower of Bey Veli and then, where today’s Military History Museum can be found, was the Esztergom Round Bastion, later renamed Primate and, most recently, Anjou Bastion. (The derivation of the name Sour Soup Bastion is unknown to this day. It is likely, though, that the name refers to the well-liked soup of Turkish cuisine boiled with sour milk.)

On the north of Castle Hill there stands, outside the Vienna Gate (Bécsi kapu), the Tower of Pasha Sziavus and, to the east of this but still by the gate, the scanty ruins of the Tower of Pasha Murád, as reminders of 150 years of Turkish rule. The bastion called Transylvanian (Erdélyi bástya) standing on the eastern side was built under János Zápolya.

The walks described below take the visitor around the burgers’ town. The history of these houses is, by and large, characteristic of the Castle District at large in that they were raised on Gothic foundations dating back to the Middle Ages. As reminders of their earliest shape there are sections of walls, fragments of vaults, a window or door frame here and there, sedilia, and, of course in traces only, bits of wall-painting. Most of the buildings were destroyed, entirely or in part, during the

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