WALKING Margaret Island

Margit-sziget is the city centre’s prime piece of park. Ecclesiastical buildings, royal residences and aristocratic hunting grounds are now largely lost in history’s mists. Today shady cestnut tress, quiet walkways and open pieces of grass make it the playground of sunbathers, joggers and strollers without time to head for the hills. The island now mesures 2.5km long by 500m wide, and settles between Margit and Árpád bridges.

Approching from Margit híd, you will be using the city’s second permanent river crossing, built 1872-76. It was designed in Parisian style by a colleague of  Eiffel, and predictably became nicknamed the „French Bridge”. Scores of pedestriens were killed when the retreating Germans blew up the structure during World War II. Follow the pedestrian bridge that runs from here down to the island, and ahead will be the Centenary Monument, erected on the 100^th anniver-sary of the union of Buda, Pest and Óbuda. A short distance beyond that is the country’s largest fountain, a spectacular affair with shooting jets that rise to 25m.

Walk on past the Hajós Alfréd Swwimming Pool on the left, its indoor pool designed by an Olympic champion of the first modern games in 1896. A few hundred metres further up you can find the remains of a 13^th-to 14^th-century Franciscan Church, with a Gothic tracery window. The island’s main archaeolgical site is the cloister and church of the Dominican nuns. When the Mongols sacked the country in 1241, Béla IV swore an oath that his future daughter would devote her life to God if his people were delivered from the hordes. Margit was born the following year, and the king had the complex built in honour of the Blessed Virgin. Margit lived a life of utmost piety here, and was famed for performing curing miracles. The cult of Margit began soon after her death at 28. The foundations – and the marble coffin of Margit’s brother, István V, complete with golden funeral crown ( now in the Budapest History Museum) – were discovered during the clear up after the Great Flood of 1838.

Shipyard ( or Óbuda) Island

This is where palaces of the Roman proconsuls stood when Aquincum was at its height, and much later where an industrial shipyard was sited.
Ladik Csárda is very popular fish –restaurant, and the island is invaded by music lovers during the Sziget Festival.