For eight hundred years, getting to Esztergom meant a boat, a ferry, or a pontoon bridge that had to be taken out whenever the ice came. On 28 September 1895 a steel bridge opened across the Danube, named Mária Valéria after the youngest daughter of Emperor Franz Joseph. It turned the two towns into one place to live in: people crossed every day to work, to school, to the market and to church. The Vienna–Budapest main line already ran through the town, so Parkan was now a railway junction and a road crossing at once, and it grew accordingly.Osemsto rokov znamenala cesta do Ostrihomu loďku, prievoz alebo pontónový most, ktorý museli pred príchodom ľadov rozobrať. 28. septembra 1895 sa cez Dunaj otvoril oceľový most pomenovaný po Márii Valérii, najmladšej dcére cisára Františka Jozefa. Z dvoch miest urobil jedno miesto na život: ľudia chodili cez rieku denne do práce, do školy, na trh aj do kostola. Cez mesto už viedla hlavná trať z Viedne do Budapešti, takže Parkan bol odrazu železničným uzlom aj cestným prechodom — a podľa toho rástol.
