Esztergom is Hungary's holiest city. It stands on a bluff above the Danube where the country meets Slovakia, dominated by a basilica so enormous it can be spotted from twenty kilometres away. King István — St Stephen — was born and crowned here in the year 1000, making Esztergom the cradle of Christian Hungary and its first capital. The Archbishop of Esztergom remains the head of the Hungarian Catholic Church, and the city has held that role without interruption for over a thousand years.
The Mongols levelled it in 1241, the Ottomans held it for over a century, and the cathedral wasn't finished until 1869 — so the city you see today is largely a 19th-century reconstruction. That history of destruction and rebuilding gives Esztergom a peculiarly layered quality: grand ecclesiastical architecture sitting above the ruins of a medieval royal palace, with a modern bridge stretching across the Danube to Štúrovo in Slovakia.
Most visitors come for the day from Budapest, which is roughly an hour away by train. That's enough time to climb the castle hill, walk through the Esztergom Basilica, and peer down at the river. But Esztergom rewards a slower pace — the Christian Museum holds one of the finest collections of medieval art in Central Europe, and the Víziváros district at the foot of the castle has quiet streets and a handful of good places to eat. The Maria Valéria Bridge makes a brief foray into Slovakia easy, and the medieval Royal Palace ruins beneath the basilica are often overlooked by visitors who go no further than the church.