Fisherman’s Bastion is a terrace, not a medieval fort

Frigyes Schulek designed the white arcades, stairways and towers, which were built between 1895 and 1902 on the line of the old castle wall. The wall had no military use by then. The aim was to frame the restored Matthias Church next door and give Budapest a grand viewpoint for the millennium era.

The seven towers stand for the seven Magyar tribes that arrived around 896. It is commonly believed, and repeated in many Hungarian descriptions, that their conical roofs recall the tents of the conquering Magyars.

Tradition holds that in the Middle Ages the fishermen's guild of Víziváros, the 'Water Town' at the foot of the hill, was responsible for defending this stretch of the wall, and that a fish market stood nearby. Today the arcades frame the whole Pest riverfront, from the Parliament to the Chain Bridge.

Digging the foundations uncovered far older layers of Buda, including medieval and Renaissance stones and part of a former Dominican church. Beside the bastion stands Alajos Stróbl's equestrian statue of King Stephen.