The Djami Café

Have a cup of coffee or tea and perhaps some cake in a truly unique, historical environment.

The location of the current Café has always been a busy ‘passageway’. Centuries ago, this used to be the Water Town’s main road, and the cobblestone road – which dates back to medieval times and is still in use today – serves as proof of that. Due to a shortage of space, the Djami was built above over this particular street, and the floor of the Djami was reinforced with arched columns in subsequent periods. It is under these arches that visitors can drink their refreshments at the end of their visit.

The unique characteristics of the old traffic intersection are recognisable to this day. This is the place from where people can enter the Djami – one story higher – from the street or proceed to the Mill and the Tower protecting it, or could exit the Water Town and go to the bank of the Danube through the Small Gate. The military port of the town was also near for quite some time, and this also where people crossed over on a floating bridge on foot to the town that is today known as Párkány. As a Turkish traveller Evliya Çelebi writes: “a horse may enter through it, but a carriage cannot.”. This is an important place, as also shown by the Suleiman memorial plaque on the outside of the gate.

It was at this gate in 1543 that the first three Spahis of Suleiman broke through, taking the bastion and forcing the defenders of the castle to surrender. It was in testimony to this heroic deed that the Turks placed this memorial stone here, along with the Djami itself presumably with the same intent, at the beginning of the 1600s.