The original hospital rooms
Beds, operating theatres and equipment as they were left, with wax figures of staff and wounded in position.
Beneath Castle Hill in Buda runs a network of natural caves formed in the limestone over thousands of years, used by the people of Buda since the Middle Ages as cellars, passages and shelters. In the late 1930s, with war approaching, the authorities converted part of it into a fortified underground military hospital. The hospital worked in earnest during the siege of Budapest in the winter of 1944-45. Designed for sixty patients, at the height of the fighting it held more than six hundred: patients on the floor in the corridors, and shortages of water, electricity and morphine. It was brought back into service again during the 1956 revolution. In the 1950s, at the height of the Cold War, it was equipped as a nuclear shelter with air-filtration systems and sealed doors โ and remained an official secret until 2002. The museum today presents the place as it was: beds, operating rooms and original equipment, with hundreds of wax figures of doctors, nurses and wounded in position. Entry is by guided tour only, lasting about an hour, and the underground temperature holds steady around eighteen degrees summer and winter โ making it an excellent refuge in August heat or on a wet day.
Beds, operating theatres and equipment as they were left, with wax figures of staff and wounded in position.
Sealed doors and 1950s air-filtration plant โ the part that stayed an official secret until 2002.
The passages are cut into natural limestone beneath Castle Hill, used since the Middle Ages before ever becoming a hospital.
From about twelve upwards. The wax figures of the wounded are very realistic and can disturb younger children, and the passages are narrow and enclosed. The tour is structured and cannot easily be left partway.
Passages are narrow and ceilings low in places, and anyone with claustrophobia may find it hard. But the lighting is good, ventilation works and the tour keeps moving โ most visitors find it comfortable.
Museum policy prohibits it entirely, to protect the displays and keep tours moving through narrow passages. Accept it and do not attempt it discreetly โ the guides enforce it firmly.
You are inside the Castle District: Matthias Church and the Fisherman's Bastion are minutes away, Buda Castle to the south. Use it as the indoor stop on a Castle Hill day, especially if the weather is hot or wet.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet โ be the first.
A closing part on nuclear weapons and their human effect โ heavy, but it explains why the shelter was built.
Lovas รบt 4/c, Castle District, Buda 1012