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If you're not in a hurry to reach the palace, it's worth exploring the quieter, northern reaches of the Var, whose streets abound in period details. A common medieval feature that's survived are the sedilia, rows of niches with seats, in the passageway to the inner courtyard. For an example, look no further than the Fortuna restaurant on Hess Andras ter, which occupies the site of Hungary's first printing press, set up by Andras Hess in 1473. Also notice the hedgehog relief above the door of the former Red Hedgehog Inn at no. 3, where Janissaries were billeted in Turkish times. Don't miss the fascinating Museum of Commerce and Catering ( Kereskedelmi es Vendeglatoipari Muzeum ; Wed-Fri 10am-5pm, Sat & Sun 10am-6pm; 100Ft) at Fortuna utca 4, just off the square. In the Commerce section are antique shopfronts and interiors, and a model dog that raps on the glass with its paws, meant to attract passers-by into stores. The Catering section pays homage to the restaurateur Karoly Gundel and the confectioner Emil Gerbeaud, while another section called "Hospitable Budapest" features furnishings from old coffee houses and a reconstructed bedroom from the Hotel Gellert . Waiters used such specialized items of cutlery as asparagus clippers, produced by the Budapest instrument-makers Ignacz Dreher & Son, whose 25-bladed pocket knife (anticipating the Swiss Army version) is also on display. The Music History Museum at Tancsics Mihaly utca 7 ( Zenetorteneti Muzeum ; Tues-Sun: April-Oct 10am-6pm; Nov-March 10am-5pm; 300Ft) occupies the Baroque Erdody Palace where Beethoven was a guest in 1800 and Bartok had his workshop before he emigrated. The museum displays scores of instruments representing three centuries of music, from a Holczman harp made for Marie Antoinette and a unique tongue-shaped violin in the Classical section to hurdy-gurdies, zithers, cowhorns and bagpipes in the Folk part. By the 1900s, homemade folk instruments were being replaced by factory products like the Schunda pedal-cimbalom. You can also see an exhibition of Bartok's scores and jottings, including bits of The Wooden Prince and Violin Rhapsody No. 2 . Next door, no. 9, was once a barracks where the Habsburgs jailed Hungarian radicals such as Mihaly Tancsics - after whom the street is named - but in an earlier age it was home to both Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, and called Zsido utca (Jewish Street). The Ashkenazi community was established in the reign of Bela IV and encouraged by King Matyas. Though you wouldn't think so from the outside, no. 26 contains a Medieval Jewish Prayer House ( Kozepkori Zsido Imahaz ; May-Oct Tues-Sun 10am-5pm; 200Ft) once used by the Sephardis. All that remains of its original decor are two Cabbalistic symbols painted on a wall, though the museum does its best to flesh out the history of the community with maps and prints - all the real treasures are in the Jewish Museum in Pest. Sparing a glance for the turbaned Turk's head above the doorway of no. 24, head on to Becsi kapu ter , an inclined plaza named after the Vienna Gate that was erected on the 250th anniversary of the recapture of Buda. Beside it, the forbiddingly neo-Romanesque National Archives (no admission) guard the way to Kapisztran ter , a larger square centred on the Mary Magdalene Tower ( Magdolna-torony ), whose accompanying church was wrecked in World War II (though there are plans to rebuild it). In medieval times this was where Hungarian residents worshipped; Germans used the Matyas Church. Today the tower boasts a peal of bells that jingles through a medley by the jazz pianist Gyorgy Szabados, which includes Hungarian folk tunes, Chopin's Etudes and the theme from Bridge Over the River Kwai . Beyond is a statue of Friar John Capistranus , who exhorted the Hungarians to victory at the siege of Belgrade in 1456, which the pope hailed by ordering church bells to be rung at noon throughout Europe. It shows Capistranus bestriding a dead Turk and is aptly located outside the Military History Museum , located in a former barracks on the north of the square ( Hadtorteneti Muzeum ; Tues-Sun: April-Sept 10am-6pm; Oct-March 10am-4pm; 250Ft). This has gung-ho exhibitions on the history of hand-weapons from ancient times till the advent of firearms, and the birth and campaigns of the Honved (national army) during the 1848-49 War of Independence, but what sticks in the memory are the sections on the Hungarian Second Army that was decimated at Stalingrad, and the "Thirteen Days" of the 1956 Uprising (accompanied by newsreel footage at 11am & 2pm). The entrance to the museum is on the Toth Arpad setany, a promenade lined with cannons and chestnut trees, overlooking the Buda hills, which leads past a giant flagpole striped in Hungarian colours to the symbolic grave of Abdurrahman , the last Turkish Pasha of Buda, who died on the walls in 1686 - a "valient foe", according to the inscription.
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