Visegrád

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History

Visegrád was always in the centre of attention during history due to its favourable amenities and essential strategical role. The earliest traces of a human presence lead us to the New Stone Age, and from the Bronze Age the town and its surroundings have been populated continuously. During the historical times Celtics, Germans, Romans, Avars and Hungarians were populating the Danube Bend area. The first fortress of Visegrád was built on the castrum, by using its stones, but this fortress was demolished during the Mongol invasion.  The current fortress complex was built by Bela IV and his wife Queen Maria in the 1250s. The fortress consists of the Citadel on the top of a 328 m hill, the Lower Castle situated on the hill underneath the Fortress hill, and the Water Bastion located on the Danube embankment. The town became internationally important in the 15th century during the reign of the Anjou Dynasty. Charles Robert started the construction of the Royal Palace on the main street of the town close to the Danube Bank around 1320. Within couple of years this centre became the royal headquarters and the favourite residing place of the King.

Location and climate

Visegrád is a small castle town in Pest County, Hungary. Situated north of Budapest on the right bank of the Danube in the Danube Bend. Visegrád is famous for the remains of the Early Renaissance summer palace of King Matthias Corvinus of Hungary and the medieval citadel.

Tourist attractions

The Citadel (Fellegvár) and the Lower Castle The Visegrád double castle system is one of the castles built by Béla IV recognizing the consequences of the Mongol invasion. The fortress preserved its significance until the Turkish invasions. The Citadel had a multifunctional role: it was protecting the valley of the Danube, it was controlling the main commerical route between Buda and Esztergom, and also served as a custom’s house. The fortress consisted of two parts.
Görgey House- The legendary General of the War for Freedom, Artúr Görgey spent his last decades in the house number 5 Fő Street. Already during his life the debates about his judgement started, as lot of people agreed with the accusation of Kossuth and considered him as a betrayer.     
Sibrik Hill - Near Visegrád we can find numerous remains of the `limes` protecting the province of Pannonia. Among these the most important are the remains of the Roman camp on the 176-metre high Sibrik Hill.
 

Surroundings

If we would travel back in time 15 million years, we could see that the so-called gap-volcanic activity many times cracked the earth’s crust, and due to the enormous eruptions the surface was covered with volcanic ash and magma. The magma rose to the surface through repeated eruptions, the ash formed a deposit and the various sized magmatic blocks were embedded in. During the millions of years it became volcanic rock, which is called in geology the ‘agglomerate’. Later on from the volcanic ash a less hard volcanic tuff evolved, which can be seen by the rock gate at the Magda Spring. During the next set of millions of years the temperature differences further crumbled and powdered the surface layer. High amounts of rainfalls crushed down the landscape and while transporting debris, it carved out valleys, than slowed its stream down and deposited its debris in the forms of flat table-like creations.  We can see nice examples of that above the Magda Spring, at the Telgárthy Meadow.

Natural healing resources

Lepence thermal bath- The open bath, which can hold about 2400 people, was built on a woody hillside. In the cultured parked environment, there is a 33 meters swimming pool that is suitable for arranging swimming competition. In addition, there are two more pools, one for children and a terrace formed thermal bath. The thermal pool is filled up continuously with 39 degrees warm thermal water, which spring up in the area of the bath. The thermal spring contains not only calcium, magnesium and hydrogen-carbonate but relatively little salt concentrated alkaloids as well.

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Map Visegrád

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