If you would like to avoid the crowds, but want to take a nice walk, it is worth visiting Saint Thomas Hill in Esztergom. By walking along a truly special calvary, we can reach the Chapel of the Sorrowful Virgin, from where the most beautiful panoramic view of the city can be seen.
Start the walk at the cross of Lajos Batthyány street and Basa street, where the Saint Thomas calvary stairs start. Instead of the traditional fourteen, we find seven stops, with varied depictions of suffering stories. The stops consist of coloured reliefs carved from stone and coloured wooden sculptures in chapel-like niches.
Order of the stops of the Cross:
1. Mount of Olives scene
2. Judas betrays his master
3. The scourging of Jesus
4. The so-called “creeping Christ”
5. Jesus carries the cross
6. Jesus is crucified
7. Scourged Jesus sitting in a cave
The next stop of the Way of the Cross is the Golgotha group in front of the chapel. The ensemble, which originally consisted of four statues, was only later completed with the two robber statues. There are statues of Mary to the left of the crucifix, Magdalene at the base of the crucifix, and Saint John the Evangelist to the right.
The mountain was named after St. Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, with whom Archbishop Bánfi Lukács of Esztergom studied together in Paris in the 1150s. The baroque-style calvary was built in 1781, and the classicist-style chapel was built in 1823.
On the southern side of the mountain, on the serpentine called Saint Stephen’s Stairs, you can admire the country’s largest working sundial. It is written there: “NIHIL EGO SINE SOLE” – “I am nothing without the Sun” and “NIHIL TU SINE DEO” – “I am nothing without God”.
On the south side of Saint Thomas hill, in front of the serpentine called Saint Stephen’s steps, there is a third-century Roman landmark, which first served on the military road passing through the city, later on the “Via Publica” route.