Budapest Castle Hill Funicular

The Budapest Castle Hill Funicular connects the river level to the royal palace grounds with two mahogany-paneled carriages moving along a steep, sixty-degree slope. Opened in eighteen seventy, it was the second funicular in Europe. Count Istvan Szechenyi pushed for its construction after seeing a similar system in Lyon. During the Second World War, bombs destroyed the original cars and rails entirely. Workers eventually rebuilt the line in nineteen eighty-six using the original nineteenth-century blueprints to restore its distinctive, early industrial appearance.