Gál Éva: Margaret Island - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2000)

walls of the ambulatory and several other rooms, the first section of the steps leading upstairs, and remains of a well-curb in the courtyard, which all belonged to the monastery joined to the church in the south. To the west of the church, a small, separate chapel, which is likely to have been Princess Margaret’s burial chapel, has been reconstructed on the basis of the remains found in 1938. (The princess’s tomb, which was originally inside the church, was probably relocated in the course of later construction work.)

The most sensational archaeological find of recent times is the long sought-after royal palace built for Béla IV and now discovered and identified by Katalin Melis, an archaeologist of the Budapest History Museum. Standing a few yards to the north of the cloister’s chapel, near the Danube, the royal residence was a significant, two-storey building with several rooms and halls. As analysis of the finds is still in progress, the site is not yet open to the public.

Ruins of the cloister

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