The Labyrinth of Buda Castle is the longest and most well-ordered visitable part of the cave system under the Castle Hill in Budapest. The Labyrinth has become known worldwide in 2000, when it was chosen for one of the 50 most interesting places in the world. At the present time it belongs to the top 10 sights in Hungary. Moreover, according to a touristic website, the Labyrinth is one of the world’s 7 underground wonders. [webUrbanist.com] It is mysterious, unfathomable, and it affects our five senses.
History:
The Labyrinth of Buda Castle is situated in the complex of caves and cellars beneath Buda Castle District. The unique calcareous tufa caves of Castle Hill were created as an effect of the hot water springs at the dawn of the history of the Earth.
The small caves were connected to each other and also to the cellarage of the houses of the Castle District for economic and military purposes, and the complex thus developed into a veritable labyrinth. In the 1930s, as part of the war-time defence program, the complex of cellars was converted into a shelter large enough to accommodate as many as ten thousand people at a time.
In the short interceptions of military utilisation and especially since the end of the Cold War, there have been initiatives to turn the labyrinth to cultural uses. A cave museum opened then reopened, and in the early 1980s, the first exhibition of wax figures in Hungary was set up here. But none of the initiatives attracted great attention, because the conserved history is a thing of the past.
During the reconstruction work which took place in 1996/97, the labyrinth – extending to over 4000 square meters – regained its pre-war look as far as it was possible, with the word “labyrinth” determining its cultural and spiritual profile.
The exhibition:
In the present context “labyrinth” is a web of paths leading to our world, our history, or ourselves, which, given sufficient resolve, can be charted here. Looking back from the middle or from the end, the area you have covered will appear as an ordered, meaningful fabric of individual lives and historical destinies rather than a bewildering maze. It is of course in the Personal Labyrinth and the Labyrinth of Love that you will most probably realise this deeper significance of the labyrinth but it also shows, to a greater or lesser degree, in the Prehistoric, Historical Labyrinths and the Labyrinth of an Other-World as well as in the Labyrinth of Courage.
Adress: Budavári Labirintus
H-1014 Budapest, Úri u. 9
I. Entrance: Várnegyed, Úri u. 9.
II. Entrance: Váralja, Lovas út 4. (Corner of the Lovas and Palota streets)
Phone.:+36(1)212-0207, +36(1)212-0287, +36(1) 489-3281
Fax: +36(1)489-3282
E-mail: info@labirintus.com
Opening hours: 09.30 – 19.30