Liberty Statue, Budapest

The Liberty Statue crowns Gellert Hill above Budapest, a fourteen-metre bronze figure of a woman holding a palm leaf aloft, visible across much of the city. Erected in 1947 to commemorate the end of the Second World War, it originally carried Soviet-era symbolism that was reinterpreted after 1989 as a monument to freedom. It stands beside the Citadella fortress on the summit, a nineteenth-century Habsburg stronghold. The surrounding terrace offers one of the finest panoramas over the Danube, its bridges, and the domes and spires of the city.