The renovated bell and lookout tower of Budapest’s famous Matthias Church in the castle district is now open to the public. The tower was only open for visits "for the privileged ones" since it was built in 1894.

The Matthias Church was built in the time of Béla IV between 1250 and 1270 in a Romanesque-Gothic transitional style. There are no illustrations of the original tower that collapsed in 1384, and it wasn’t rebuilt for 90 years.

On the stump of the collapsed tower Matthias I had a new bell tower built, and put his coat of arms on it. We can learn from this coat of arms, that the building was completed in 1470. The present tower and the coat of arms are actually only replicas, because the extremely weakened building was completely rebuilt at the end of the 19^th century. The rebuilt tower was completed in 1894, with a replica coat of arms on its facade. The original one was put in the church, on the inner wall of the tower.

The viewing tower is 46.7 metres from the ground and 197 steps lead up to it.