Buda, Budapest Hungary Travel Guide, touring Buda, visiting Gellért Hegy

Buda

Gellért Hegy

Gellért Hegy rises 430 ft above the Danube atop steep dolomite cliffs. Before the turn of the century it was the limit of Buda, and the foremost outpost of the Castle. While there are villas on the lower slopes, the upper slopes are laced with woods, trails and spectacular views.

Reaching the foot of Gellért Hegy, stairs rise before you to the huge statue of St. Gellért defiantly raising a cross. Made by the sculptor Gyula Jankovics in 1904, the statue reputedly stands at the very spot where St.Gellert, then an Italian missionary, was stuffed in a spiked barrel by pagans and rolled down the hill to plunge into the Danube in 1046. Just to the right of the stairs is a monumental retaining wall made of huge granite blocks, laced at the top with stone handrails and balustrades from the turn of the century. It forms a heavy stone border that reaches around the hill going up the Hegyalja út. A large chiseled stone plaque reads in giant letters that the wall was built in 1902, in the final days of the Hapsburgs. Below St. Gellért’s statue, an artificial waterfall, Ferenc Medgyessy’s creation, called St. Gerard’s (Gellért’s) Fountain, refreshes the walking trail.