Budapest bridges

Probably one of the most eye catching sceneries of Budapest includes overlooking the Danube River and the bridges that connect the two sides of the city together. Budapest’s bridges are considered one of the most touristic sites of the whole city, offering a magnificent view over the city lights, the serenity of the Danube river and some other historical monuments. There has never been a person visiting Budapest that hasn’t enjoyed taking a walk on one of these bridges, perhaps stop for a picture or two or just stare at the view till she/he loses track of time. Okay I may be going overboard a little, exaggerating the sentiments a little bit more than usual but you get the idea. I promise you once you visit these awe inspiring, glorious and majestic bridges for yourself, you will understand this exaggeration of sentiments.

Now in this entry I’m going to introduce the 4 bridges which are built over the Danube river, although not all of these bridges hold a historical importance, all of them have a story to tell. So keep an open eye and let’s see what is the story behind all of these. An important fact to keep in mind that every single one of these bridges connects the two sides of the city to one another, Buda and Pest. Buda is the more metropolitan, modern and urban part of the city where as Pest is rather untouched, hilly and a little suburban. Now let’s introduce the first bridge.

Széchenyi Bridge

This bridge which is more commonly known as the chain bridge, is one of the main landmarks of Budapest, literally anyone who has seen anything in Budapest has probably seen a picture of this bridge and to be honest it is nothing short of magnificent. It was actually the first permanent stone bridge connecting Buda and Pest and the second bridge built on the length of Danube in Budapest. But enough of facts, let’s get to the story of this bridge. Firstly for all of you picture and selfies lovers this place is the absolute best spot to get some photographic shots. Wanna pose as if you’re staring into the far distance? No problem. You wanna take some pictures of you and the sunset? No problem.

Literally every pose you think of, in any style, you can do it here. And the pictures look amazing, I literally went to the bridge one afternoon and spent the whole afternoon taking pictures with my friends and the look amaze balls. I’d post some here but I wanna stay on topic with the bridges and not make the post about me as usual.

(The side view of the chain bridge at night)

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Anyhow the story of this bridge goes back to 1839, the construction started in this year and it only finished about 10 years later. 10 years? Can you believe it? There are countless name of people involved in the construction and financing of the bridge but I’m not going to go into details with that, if you have some genuine interest in the history of the bridge you can check the website called bridgesofbudapest.com

Anyhow the name “chain bridge” actually comes from the two long iron chains which are suspended on the sides of the bridge. You can see two stone lions on the sides of the bridge which were sculpted by a famous sculptor but were only allocated here in 1852, which is about a couple of years after the construction of the bridge had terminated.

The bridge that you see today isn’t actually the one that was built in 1839, during the Second World War, German troops blew up almost all of the bridges of Budapest. I mean all! How cruel. ( don’t mind me guys, I’m just way too sensitive on historical sites and their significance). Anyways the chain bridge was among the ones that was blown up. Almost of all parts the bridge were destroyed completely and only the pillars were left intact. In 1947 the decision to rebuild the bridge was taken and with some minor modifications the bridge was almost as good as new in 1949. The interesting thing is that the bridge was once opened again at the exact day that it was built 100 years ago. How cool right?

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Lastly the whole length of the bridge is about 380 meters and it contains two traffic lanes but don’t worry because it contains a magnificent and breathtaking pedestrian walk away where you can have a romantic stroll, enjoy a cup of coffee in this crispy autumn weather and lose yourself in the view. Okay I’m getting too poetic again but seriously just visit the bridge and you’ll see what I’m talking about.

Now let’s move on to the next one and see what we’ve got.

Margaret Bridge

This will be a rather short description. Margaret bridge isn’t really one of my favorites, it doesn’t have a great magnificence or charm but it’s still considered one of Budapest’s most famous bridges. Apparently they don’t decide on the importance of a bridge according to my opinion, who knew? Anyways the bridge was built as a result of a design competition in which many fine engineers from different countries applied and at last a French engineer won the competition and constructed this bridge. The works of the bridge didn’t take as much time as the chain bridge, the whole bridge was completed by 1876, the construction was actually suspended once because of the cold winter months of Budapest and resumed only after winter. Many parts of the bridge were actually transported from France to Hungary. Margaret bridge is popular due to the fact that it’s nearby Margaret island. Margaret Island is one of the most favored picnic areas in all of Budapest. During the weekend the place is full of families and students. It is a lovely place for real. And I will try to write a piece on it later on.

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The sad part is that even this bridge was blown up during the Second World War, apparently the Pest side was blown up during the afternoon rush hour and this lead to countless victims and the buda side was later on also blown up by German troops. The bridge has been going on numerous reconstructions and it has been renovated from many different aspects.

Elizabeth bridge

The third bridge that I want to introduce to you guys is the Elizabeth Bridge that is also considered one of the important landmarks of Budapest. The original bridge was actually considered the largest suspension bridge in the whole world but now the Akashi Bridge in Japan is the longest and largest suspension bridge of the whole world. Anyhow this bridge also held a design competition in which Hungarians, Americans, Austrians and some other nationalities competed to win the rights to the design of the bridge. A German engineer won the competition and built the bridge. Oh I bet you are all wondering why is it called Elizabeth Bridge and if you aren’t wondering about that, I'm still going to tell you anyway. Well it's actually named after Queen Elizabeth the wife of Francis Joseph which was assassinated in Geneva. Anyhow Hungarians have a lot of respect for Queen Elizabeth and hence why they named a whole bridge after her.

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As per expected this bridge was also blown up too during the Second World War, but the difference is that this was the only bridge which couldn’t be renovated after the war and had to be rebuilt from the beginning so basically to think of it, this isn’t even the original bridge that was once built over the Danube but just a replica of that masterpiece. However that doesn’t make it any less breath taking. If you are extremely passionate about this bridge, you can actually see some of the remains of the bridge in the Budapest transport museum. I haven’t checked it out for myself but maybe I will sometime soon.

Liberty Bridge

Liberty bridge is one of the shortest bridges of Budapest. It doesn’t hold a great significance and it's not one of the most touristic bridges either. But I thought I’d write about it just to give you guys an idea. This bridge has pretty much the same story as the other bridges, it had a design competition, and it was blown up by German troops as well. However it was barely destroyed and was actually the first bridge to be reconstructed after the war. You can see I'm very passionate to talk about this bridge. No but seriously I don't want to bore you guys with excessive details.

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There are more bridges in Budapest such as petőfi híd and even more, but I think we’ve covered enough bridges for today. This was more like an introductory post to get you acquainted with the architecture of Budapest and the roles that bridges play in that architecture. I know I have been writing a lot tips and introductory posts and I really hope that you guys find them helpful.

As usual I promise to stay active even though I've got a chemistry final exam coming up and it's pretty hectic. Wish me luck and enjoy this piece.

Cheers!

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