Gellért Hill

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Gellért Hill (or Gellérthegy in Hungarian) is part of Budapest’s Ist and XIth Districts, named after the saint thrown to his death from the hill. The famous Hotel Gellért and the Gellért Baths can be found in Gellért Square at the foot of the hill, next to Liberty Bridge. The Gellért Hill Cave is located within the hill, facing toward the Hotel Gellért and the Danube River.

The highest point of the hill is 235 m. At the top of the hill is the famous Citadella (Citadel), from which a glorious view is available down both directions of the Danube. The Citadel was built after the 1848-49 Hungarian uprising by the ruling Habsburg Austrians, as it was a prime, strategic site for shelling both Buda and Pest in the event of a future revolt.

It also saw action in the Second World War and the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, when Soviet tanks stood up on the hill and fired down into the city. Indeed, battle scars still pockmark the building. There is a small military museum in the Citadel’s grounds. At the end of Citadella is the Freedom Statue (Szabadság Szobor in Hungarian), a large monument erected by the Soviet Red Army to commemorate their victory in World War II.

Now an affluent residential area, a number of embassies and ambassadorial residences line the streets which wind up the hill. Since 1987, the area is listed as a world heritage site as a remarkable part of "the Banks of the Danube".

A large proportion of the hill consists of open-access parkland. Perhaps unusually for the centre of a large city, bats and hedgehogs are commonly observed on summer nights.