Dominikánus Udvar

The Fisherman's Bastion on Castle Hill in Buda is crowded with tourists looking for the best picture. Many of them ignore a hidden place to visit located very close to them. It is located in the adjacent modern luxury hotel, where if you dare to enter and turn left, past the guests chatting in the lobby bar, you can go down and discover a medieval courtyard surrounded by a Gothic cloister. On the way back, you can admire the ruins of the old church through the Entrance Hall.

 The old Dominican Monastery was built towards the middle of the thirteenth century by King Béla. The complex had a strong defensive value, being the wall of the Dominican church and monastery, part of the  former medieval fortification of Buda Castle. There is no doubt about the importance of this place because  one of the world's first universities could have been here, as the Dominican general assembly was held here in 1254. It should also be noted that these Dominican monks were sent out by the King to search for the Hungarians left in their homeland in the steppes of the Mongolian Empire, which is shown in a statue by Károly Antal from 1937 of the monks Julianus and Gerhardus, who carried out that trip, and which is placed in the horseshoe-shaped garden of the hotel in the apse of the former Dominican church. 

This whole area has been destroyed many times and the monastery was no exception, and its existence was forgotten over time until it was excavated in 1902 during the construction of the Fisherman's Bastion and, together with many archaeological objects, the old cloister was also discovered. Once again, during World War II, Buda Castle was devastated and it was not until the 1960s that it was proposed to build here a school respecting the historical surroundings of the place, but the enormous touristic potential and the demand to build a hotel in the area because of the superb views over the Danube and Pest meant that the Hilton hotel chain was finally granted a license for the construction of a hotel there. It was on the condition that the historic ruins were preserved as much as possible. The inauguration was scheduled for 1972 but the integration of the old remains of the monastery as well as that of an old Jesuit school from the 16th century delayed its opening until 1977. 

 In addition to the courtyard  and cloister, all the remains of the monastery  are integrated into this luxury hotel and the remains of the old church turn into a concert hall for classical music. There’s an elevator to descend to the lowest level where you can find a gate through the wall. Also there’s a wine cellar in this zone