Travel Guide Gyula

A 220 km from Budapest, Gyula, near the Romanian border, is a border between the two countries. This city of 31 000 inhabitants has had, in the past, more than its lot of invaders and foreign masters. In the second half of the th century, Gyula was the centre of a huge private estate belonging to the Maróthi family, which built a strong castle, and the Franciscan church and abbey (destroyed since then). After the extinction of the family, the estate became state owned. Mátyás Corvin, the great king of the Renaissance, offered the estate to his son János Corvin. The Corvin family having died in turn in 1510, the fort castle, conquered by the troops of Dósza, passed in 1530 under control of Transylvania. In the th century, important work was built on the fortress in a princely castle and the city was named Nagygyula (Gyula la Grande). In 1566, the castle and the rest of Hungary went under Turkish rule. The city grew net under the new masters, and the castle was released only 130 years later. After the departure of the Turks, the region was inmigrants from Hungarians from other regions; Germans and Romanians also settled there. The Germans founded their own city, and in 1857 the German city of Németgyula was reunited with the Hungarian town of Magyargyula. As a result of the war of independence, during the 1849 revolution, Gyula once again underwent a period of decline. In the unfortunate outcome of this war, in front of the Tsarist army coming hand-in-hand with the Habsbourg army, 1 300 Hungarian soldiers were forced to table their weapons at the castle. After the first world war, following the Treaty of Trianon, Gyula lost his importance. The city came out of the shadows only in 1959, thanks to the opening of the thermal baths in its castle.Today, Gyula still maintains his German, Romanian and Hungarian neighbourhoods, which have kept their old land tenure plan dating back centuries. The Elővíz Canal cuts across the city following the old course of one of the many arms of the Kőrös River (before water regulation in the th century). Its green edges, lined with trees, offer pleasant walks. One of the gastronomic specialities of the city is Gyula's sausage, with which Rivalise's spicy Csabai is competing. Don't miss the famous Pâtisserie Cukrászda pastry of 1841, which retained its th century furniture.