- Stacey Shevlin
Castle Hill Or Casterly Rock – Budapest
Walk Around Castle Hill in Budapest
While I know most of Game of Thrones is shot in Croatia (Which I will be posting about in August) so far Budapest’s Castle Hill has a very Thronsey feel.
We walked up to Castle Hill to see this marvel, and the view of Pest it affords. There are several routes up to the Hill. You can take the funicular for a fee, or you can walk up the long winding ramp to the left of the funicular, or as we did you can take the pretty steep stair path to the right of the tunnel.
Walk up the Hill
It was a pretty quick walk up the hill perhaps 10-12 minutes, through a really pretty forest patch. Once you reach the top you pop out right where the funicular lets off. We didn’t have much time to spend so this post won’t be on the museums or historical building tours, we’ll head back up next week to delve deeper into the history up there. We simply walked around and took in the sights, the view of Pest is nothing short of magnificent. If you take the first street right you’ll wind up at Fisherman’s Bastion, photo above. It’s the string of white castle-like buildings along the crest of the hill, that you see in many Budapest postcards. There are a few restaurants inside the walls that you can grab a bite or have a drink in.
There is also a great little spot outside with all of the meat you can imagine, and good cold draft beer.
Below you will also see a photo of Matthias Church, the tile work on the roof is amazing.
We wandered around a bit- if you make a right past the church, you will wind up in a sort of surreal part of town. All of the buildings are perfectly painted, there is no trash or evidence of life. It’s very pretty and very odd, it feels like you are in an outdoor museum of sorts.
The view from the top is breathtaking.
Since we didn’t have a lot of time that day that’s all we got to check out but I will share a great tip. I was reading about the Hill and came across a blog that mentioned a better path back down.
You will see a Hilton Hotel behind the church, walk with the Hilton on your right and you’ll see a parking lot, beyond the lot there is a curved archway that leads to stairs. Go through that and walk down the stairs, this path is far less traveled than the other options and gives you unobscured views for taking photos -like the ones below… follow it all the way down and you’ll wind up at the bottom of Buda right in town.