Margaret Bridge
A bridge that bends at a strange angle toward its island — and once exploded mid-afternoon when a passing tram spark hit Wehrmacht demolition charges.
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Built by French engineer Ernest Goüin between 1872 and 1876, this 607-metre crossing is Budapest's second-oldest public bridge. It forks visibly toward Margaret Island at 165 degrees — an awkward angle born of a spur crammed into the original design and left unfunded for two more decades. On 4 November 1944 a stray tram spark prematurely detonated explosives, killing an estimated 100 to 600 people including Olympic fencing champion Endre Kabos.
What to look for
- The 165-degree kink where the bridge forks toward Margaret Island — watch for it from the tram or on foot at the junction
- The eastern span, rebuilt after the 1944 premature explosion that sent tram carriages and passengers into the Danube
- The Germanus Gyula park end on the Buda side, steps from the Lukács and Király Baths
Board from Jászai Mari tér at the northern tip of Pest's Grand Boulevard, or approach the Buda end near the Lukács Baths.
Margaret Bridge is one of 37 sights worth the detour in Budapest, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Budapest pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Budapest
- Hungarian Parliament BuildingA political manifesto in stone: Hungary's parliament was built to look like Westminster, on purpose, with 40 kg of gold inside.
- Buda CastleA palace first raised in 1265, severely damaged in the Siege of Budapest during World War II, and rebuilt by a communist government — the scars and the seams are the story.
- Széchenyi Chain BridgeThe bridge that stitched Buda and Pest into one city — designed in Britain, shipped in sections, and opened in 1849 as one of the world's longest spans.
- Heroes' SquareAt the far end of Andrássy Avenue, a monument built in 1896 fixes the Magyar conquest of 896 AD in stone — seven founding chieftains, national leaders, and the plaza where Hungary reburied Imre Nagy in 1989.
- AquincumMarcus Aurelius is believed to have written parts of the Meditations here — on the Roman empire's frontier, not in Rome.
- St. Stephen's BasilicaThe first King of Hungary's mummified right hand sits in a reliquary here — and the dome above you had to be torn down and rebuilt from nothing after it collapsed in 1858.