Margaret Bridge
Steel river bridge bent into a striking Y toward a leafy island, rebuilt after a wartime blast.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to Margaret Bridge in Budapest centers on a Saturday rush hour, November 4, 1944, when German sappers were secretly priming the bridge's piers with explosives while trams and crowds crossed overhead, meaning to blow it only once the Soviet army drew near. You'll hear the disputed accounts of what set the charges off early, with the bridge still full of people, and meet Endre Kabos, the Olympic fencing champion who was crossing at the time. It also traces the odd, deliberate kink toward Margaret Island that Budapest still jokes makes it a lying Eiffel Tower.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
Elisabeth Bridge
Stark white cable-stayed span rebuilt on the ruins of an ornate 1903 chain bridge blown up in the war.
Szabadság híd
Ornate green ironwork cantilever bridge across the Danube, opened by an emperor and rebuilt after wartime destruction.
Széchenyi Chain Bridge
Nineteenth-century chain suspension bridge over the Danube, guarded by four stone lions.
Fővám Square
Riverside plaza with a silver-riveted bridge and a colorful-tiled market hall on old customs land.
Shoes on the Danube Bank
Rows of cast-iron shoes fixed to the riverbank, marking the site of wartime massacres.
Kossuth Lajos Square
Open riverside plaza scarred with bronze-marked bullet holes from a nineteen fifty-six massacre.