Buda Caves Opened

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 174, 26 July 1938, Page 4

Buda Caves Opened

LABYRINTH IN BUDAPEST Visitors to Budapest will find a new attraction in Buda caves, which have been made partly accessible. The labyrinth of caves under the fortress is 10 miles long, but only 11 large halls have as yet been fully excavated with their connecting passages, some of which have crumbling steps up to some of the oldest houses. Nearly eVfiry hall contains a well (believed to be a unique characteristic), and many of them have airshafts, which seem to indicate that they were used as refuges by the citizens of Buda during troubled periods. The present entrance to the caves is through the flowery courtyard of the old Buda town hall, and the tourist will notice the row of prisons in which Buda citizens were formerly incarcerated for drunkenness, pilfering, or other petty crimes. A comfortable staircase replaces the broken, muddy tunnel, and gives access to the different floors of the caves, the lowest of which was used by the Turks at the time of the Turkish invasion. The walls of these lower caves show traces of mud, sand, and gravel, which remain from the time when the Danube rose to the level of the higner parts of thft fortress.