Excursion No. Two: Danube Bend Itinerary (September 23, 2007)

DEPARTURE: Meeting time: 7.45 a.m., Nyugati Railway Station (by the big table showing arrival and departure of trains). Please be on time.

Our second group excursion of this semester will take us to the Danube Bend.
We are going by train. Our first destination is Esztergom.
Here is what we are planning to do and see:

ESZTERGOM: After the Celts, the Romans took possession of the area and, similarly to many places along the Danube, built a military post. Esztergom’s Roman name was Solva Mansio. It was here, that the Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius wrote a part of his most famous philosophical treatise, “The Meditations” while fighting against Germanic people.

Prince Géza chose the area as his residence, and Saint István, the first king of Hungary was born and crowned here. St. István completed the conversion of Hungarians to Christianity and founded the Hungarian State. The first palace belonging to the kings of Hungary as well as the first basilica were constructed here. In the 12th century, the King of Hungary received western European knights here on their way to the Holy Land. Among them were Godefroi de Bouillon, the French King Louis VII, and the German-Roman Emperor, Friedrich Barbarossa. The Royal residence was moved to Buda after the Mongol invasion (1241-42), but the head of the Catholic Church in Hungary, the Archbishop of Esztergom, remained. During the time of the archbishops Janos Vitéz and Tamás Bakócz (early 16th century), the city still continued to flourish where leading European artists and scholars lived in the households of the archbishops. During the Turkish occupation, however, almost the entire city was destroyed (1543-1683). The first “modern” Hungarian lyrical poet, Bálint Balassi, died a hero’s death beneath the walls of the castle of Esztergom. Monteverdi, the court musician of the Prince of Mantua was also in Esztergom at about that time.

We will try to see the following: the Cathedral, its crypt and its dome, and the Esztergom Royal Palace. Students who will enroll in Art History should take note of the Cathedral. The Museum of Christian Art is the most notable art collection outside Budapest. Among its exhibits are valuable paintings and woodcarvings dating back to the 15th and 16th centuries of artists representing the entire Danube region. Should you have the occasion at another time, please make sure to visit there.

After sightseeing, we can walk over to Slovakia across the Maria Valeria Bridge if time permits it.
Lunch on your own.






From Esztergom we are going to take a bus to Visegrád. It is not a rented bus. The bus goes every hour from Esztergom to Visegrád.

VISEGRÁD: In the 4th century the Romans built a fortress here and, following the Magyar Conquest, a monastery was erected in the 11th century. After the Mongol invasion (1241), as part of the general fortification project of King Béla IV and his wife Queen Maria, the construction of the lower fortress was begun in 1250, followed by that of the citadel high above on the mountain. Less than a century later, King Charles Robert of Anjou, moved the royal household to Visegrád and had the lower castle converted to a palace.

For almost 200 years, Visegrád was considered Hungary’s capital and an important diplomatic center. In 1335 King Charles Robert met the Polish and Czech kings as well as princes from Saxony and Bavaria, to discuss territorial disputes and an east-west trade route that would bypass Vienna.

New constructions were ordered by Louis I the Great of Anjou (1342-1382) and his wife Maria and then by their daughter, Queen Elizabeth and her husband, Sigismund of Luxemburg (1387- 1437). Visegrád retained the title as the capital city until 1405-08 when the royal court was moved to Buda. However, Visegrád remained a favorite royal residence, and the completed palace of Sigismund in Visegrád was splendid.

Visegrád’s next and most magnificent period fell under the reign of Matthias I Corvinus (1458-1490). An envoy of the Pope visiting Visegrád began his letter: “Ex Visegrado paradiso terrestri” (“from Visegrád, a paradise on earth”). King Matthias and his Italian wife, Queen Beatrice, had the Gothic palace rebuilt by Italian Renaissance masters. The sheer size of the residence, its stonework, fountains and hanging gardens were the talk of the 15th century.

During Turkish rule, the palace and the citadel fell into ruin and the village was deserted. Later, settlers used the stones to build homes. Finally, landslides covered the area hiding for centuries any trace of evidence of the once magnificent palace. Archeologists stumbled over the first find in 1934. What we can see today are the partially reconstructed elements of the palace. We will climb to the citadel if you have not done it already.

We are going to come back to Budapest by ship. We will be back in Budapest on Sunday around 19.00 p.m.