Best Chain Bridge Day Trips & Things to Do

This suspension bridge was the first permanent bridge in all of Budapest. Before it opened in 1849, people used a temporary bridge to cross the Danube in the summer and had to use a ferry in the winter. When Count Szechenyi missed his father’s funeral due to weather shutting down the ferry, he advocated for the Chain Bridge to be built. The 1230-foot bridge opened in November 1849 to connect Pest and Buda, which were still separate cities at the time. The Nazis blew up the original bridge in 1945 but an exact replica was reconstructed, opening in 1949.