Buda Royal Palace

In front of you stretches the Royal Palace of Buda. What you see today is only the latest of many lives: few buildings in Europe have been destroyed and rebuilt so many times.

1Seven centuries of palaces

King Béla IV built the first royal residence here from 1247, after the Mongol invasion. Sigismund of Luxembourg turned it into one of the largest Gothic palaces in Europe, and Matthias Corvinus filled it with Italian Renaissance art after marrying Beatrice of Naples. In 1541 the Ottomans arrived, and the Christian siege of 1686 left the palace in ruins.

Maria Theresa had a Baroque palace built between 1749 and 1769. In 1849, during the revolution, Hungarian forces besieged the Austrian garrison and fire gutted much of it. Miklós Ybl and then Alajos Hauszmann enlarged it to its present vast size, inaugurated in 1912. The siege of 1944–45 reduced it to ruins again; it was rebuilt in a plainer form, with the exterior finished in 1966.

2What it holds today

No king lives here any more. Inside are the Hungarian National Gallery, the Budapest History Museum and the National Széchényi Library.

Walk round the west wing and you'll find the Matthias Fountain in the courtyard: the king out hunting, and lovely Ilonka, who fell for him without knowing he was king.

3What to look for

• The statue of Prince Eugene of Savoy by József Róna, placed here in 1900: the victor over the Ottomans at Zenta.
• The green dome, rebuilt after the war in a different shape from the original.
• The view: the Chain Bridge, the basilica and Parliament in a single glance.