Franciscan Church & Monastery

Budapest

　　These ruins – no more than a tower and a wall dating back to the late 13th century – are in the centre of the island. Habsburg Archduke Joseph built a summer residence here when he inherited the island in 1867. It was later converted into a hotel, which operated...

Ervin Szabó Central Library

Budapest

　　Southeast of the Hungarian National Museum is the main repository of Budapest’s public library system, which holds some 2.4 million books and bound periodicals and upwards of 250,000 audiovisual and digital items. Completed in 1889 and exquisitely renovated, the public reading room has gypsum ornamentation, gold tracery and enormous chandeliers....

Jedermann Cafe

Budapest

　　This lovely and uber-chilled old-style cafe and restaurant at the southern end of XI Ráday utca turns into a great music venue at night, focusing on jazz, world and folk. Gigs (800Ft) are at 9pm Thursday to Sunday, but exact days depend on the season. There's an eclectic, changing food...

Nagycsarnok

Budapest

　　Completed in 1897, this is Budapest's biggest market, though it has become a tourist magnet since its renovation for the millecentenary celebrations in 1996. Still, plenty of locals come here for fruit, vegetables, deli items, fish and meat. Head up to the 1st floor for Hungarian folk costumes, dolls, painted...

Mazel Tov

Budapest

　　An Israeli restaurant with an enormous courtyard that comes into its own in the warmer months, 'Good Luck' serves lots of grilled meats like merguez sausages and chicken shawarma that would not go amiss on a street corner in Tel Aviv. But as there, lots of vegetarian options make an...

Giero Pub

Budapest

　　This basement bar, presided over by Gizi néni (Aunt Gizi), is the place to come to listen to Gypsy music, as Roma musicians play the real deal from about 10pm when they’re off duty after playing saccharine junk at top-end hotels. Expect a warm welcome but no frills. Love, love,...

Roman Military Amphitheatre

Budapest

　　Built in the 2nd century for the Roman garrisons, this amphitheatre, about 800m south of Flórián tér. It's not especially impressive but will give you an indication of its size, which could accommodate up to 6000 spectators. The rest of the military camp extended north to Flórián tér. Archaeology and...

Gül Baba’s Tomb

Budapest

　　This renovated tomb contains the mortal remains of one Gül Baba, an Ottoman dervish who took part in the capture of Buda in 1541 and is known in Hungary as the ‘Father of Roses’. The tomb/mosque (1548) is a pilgrimage place for Muslims, especially from Turkey, and you must remove...

Roman Civilian Amphitheatre

Budapest

　　The Roman Civilian Amphitheatre is about half the size of the one reserved for the military to the south. Much is left to the imagination, but you can still see the small cubicles where lions were kept and, to the west, the ‘Gate of Death’ through which slain gladiators were...

Holocaust Tree of Life Memorial

Budapest

　　In the Raul Wallenberg Memorial Garden on the Great Synagogue’s north side, the Holocaust (or Emanuel) Tree of Life Memorial, designed by Imre Varga in 1991 and paid for by the late American actor Tony Curtis for his Hungarian-born father Emanuel Schwartz, stands over the mass graves of those murdered...

Ruszwurm Cukrászda

Budapest

　　This diminutive cafe dating from 1827 is the perfect place for coffee and cakes (550Ft to 750Ft) in the Castle District. Be warned: in high season it’s almost always impossible to get a seat – inside or out. ...

Heroes' Square

Budapest

　　Heroes’ Sq is the largest and most symbolic square in Budapest. It is dominated by the Millenary Monument (Ezeréves emlékmű), a 36m-high pillar topped by a golden Archangel Gabriel, holding the Hungarian crown and a cross. At the column's base are Prince Árpád and six other Magyar chieftains who occupied...

New York Café

Budapest

　　Considered the most beautiful cafe in the world when it opened in 1894, this neo-Renaissance-style place on the ground floor of the New York Palace Hotel has been the scene of many a literary gathering. Some say it lacks the warmth and erudite crowd of most traditional cafes, but the...

Citadella

Budapest

　　The Citadella is a fortress that never saw battle. Built by the Habsburgs after the 1848–49 War of Independence to defend the city from further insurrection, the structure was obsolete by the time it was ready in 1854 due to the change in political climate. Today the fortress contains some...

Hadik Kávéház

Budapest

　　This place has brought history back to Bartók Béla út. The Hadik is a revived old-world cafe that pulled in the punters for more than four decades before being shut down in 1949. It's now back, as relaxed and atmospheric as ever. Excellent daily lunch menu for 1490Ft. ...

Gerbeaud

Budapest

　　Located on the northern side of Pest’s busiest square, Gerbeaud has been the most fashionable meeting place for the city’s elite since 1870. Along with exquisitely prepared cakes and pastries, it serves continental/full breakfast (2690Ft to 3990Ft) and a smattering of nicely presented Hungarian dishes with international touches. A visit...

City Park

Budapest

　　City Park is Pest’s green lung, an open space measuring almost a square kilometre that hosted most of the events during Hungary’s 1000th anniversary celebrations in 1896. In general, museums lie to the south of XIV Kós Károly sétány, while activities of a less cerebral nature, including the zoo and...

Hospital in the Rock Nuclear Bunker Museum

Budapest

　　Part of the Castle Hill caves network, this subterranean hospital was used extensively during the WWII siege of Budapest and during the 1956 Uprising. It contains original medical equipment as well as some 200 wax figures and is visited on a guided one-hour tour, which includes a walk through a...

Fishermen’s Bastion

Budapest

　　The bastion, a neo-Gothic masquerade that looks medieval and offers some of the best views in Budapest, was built as a viewing platform in 1905 by Frigyes Schulek, the architect behind Matthias Church. Its name was taken from the medieval guild of fishermen responsible for defending this stretch of the...

Hungarian National Gallery

Budapest

　　The Hungarian National Gallery is an overwhelming collection spread across four floors and four wings of the palace that traces Hungarian art from the 11th century to the present day. The largest collections include medieval and Renaissance stonework, Gothic wooden sculptures and panel paintings and late-Gothic winged altars. The museum...

Béla Bartók Memorial House

Budapest

　　North of Szilágyi Erzsébet fasor, this house (1924) is where the great composer resided from 1932 until 1940, when he emigrated to the USA. Visits are by guided tour and include seeing the old Edison recorder (complete with wax cylinders) that Bartók used to record Hungarian folk music in Transylvania,...

Hungarian State Opera House

Budapest

　　The neo-Renaissance Hungarian State Opera House was designed by Miklós Ybl in 1884 and is among the most beautiful buildings in Budapest. Its facade is decorated with statues of muses and opera greats such as Puccini, Mozart, Liszt and Verdi, while its interior dazzles with marble columns, gilded vaulted ceilings,...

Vajdahunyad Castle

Budapest

　　Erected for the 1896 millenary celebrations originally in canvas and later built in stone, the castle was modelled after a fortress in Transylvania – but with Gothic, Romanesque and baroque wings and additions to reflect architectural styles from all over Hungary. Today, it's anchor tenant is the Hungarian Agricultural Museum....

Royal Palace

Budapest

　　The former Royal Palace has been razed and rebuilt at least half a dozen times over the past seven centuries. Béla IV established a royal residence here in the mid-13th century, and subsequent kings added to the complex. The palace was levelled in the battle to drive out the Turks...

Szimpla Kert

Budapest

　　Budapest's first romkocsma (ruin pub), Szimpla Kert is firmly on the tourist trail but remains a landmark place for a drink. It's a huge complex with nooks filled with bric-a-brac, graffiti, art and all manner of unexpected items. Sit in an old Trabant car, watch a film in the open-air...

Shoes on the Danube

Budapest

　　Along the banks of the river between Széchenyi István tér and Parliament is a monument to Hungarian Jews shot and thrown into the Danube by members of the fascist Arrow Cross Party in 1944. Entitled Shoes on the Danube by sculptor Gyula Pauer and film director Can Togay, it’s a...

Andrássy út

Budapest

　　Andrássy út starts a short distance northeast of Deák Ferenc tér and stretches for 2.5km, ending at Heroes’ Sq (Hősök tere) and the sprawling City Park (Városliget). Listed by Unesco as a World Heritage Site in 2002, it is a tree-lined parade of knock-out architecture and is best enjoyed as...

Basilica of St Stephen Dome

Budapest

　　The top of Basilica of St Stephen dome offers some of the best views in Budapest. It can be reached via a lift and 42 steps (or 302 steps if you want to walk the whole way up). ...

Centrál Kávéház

Budapest

　　This grande dame of a traditional cafe dates back to 1887. Awash with leather and dark wood inside, it's also a great spot for people-watching. It serves breakfast (2250Ft to 3250Ft) until 11.30am as well as full meals and, of course, cakes and pastries (750Ft to 1450Ft). ...

Matthias Church

Budapest

　　Parts of Matthias Church date back 500 years, notably the carvings above the southern entrance, but essentially the church (named after King Matthias Corvinus who married Queen Beatrix here in 1474) is a neo-Gothic confection designed by the architect Frigyes Schulek in 1896. 　　Steps in the northwest corner of the...

Liberty Monument

Budapest

　　The Liberty Monument, the lovely lady with the palm frond in her outstretched arms, proclaiming freedom throughout the city, is southeast of the Citadella. Standing 14m high, she was raised in 1947 in tribute to the Soviet soldiers who died liberating Budapest in 1945. The victims’ names in Cyrillic letters...

Hungarian National Museum

Budapest

　　The Hungarian National Museum houses the nation’s most important collection of historical relics in an impressive neoclassical building, purpose built in 1847. Exhibits on the 1st floor trace the history of the Carpathian Basin from earliest times to the arrival of the Magyars in the 9th century; the ongoing story...

Parliament

Budapest

　　The Eclectic-style Parliament, designed by Imre Steindl and completed in 1902, has 691 sumptuously decorated rooms. You’ll get to see several of these and other features on a guided tour of the North Wing: the Golden Staircase; the Dome Hall, where the Crown of St Stephen, the nation’s most important...

House of Terror

Budapest

　　The headquarters of the dreaded ÁVH secret police houses the disturbing House of Terror, focusing on the crimes and atrocities of Hungary's fascist and Stalinist regimes in a permanent exhibition called Double Occupation. The years after WWII leading up to the 1956 Uprising get the lion's share of the exhibition...

Basilica of St Stephen

Budapest

　　Budapest’s neoclassical cathedral is the most sacred Catholic church in all of Hungary and contains its most revered relic: the mummified right hand of the church’s patron, King St Stephen. It was built over half a century to 1905. Much of the interruption during construction had to do with a...

Memento Park

Budapest

　　Home to more than 40 statues, busts and plaques of Lenin, Marx, Béla Kun and others whose likenesses have ended up on trash heaps elsewhere, Memento Park, 10km southwest of the city centre, is truly a mind-blowing place to visit. Ogle the socialist realism and try to imagine that some...

Great Synagogue

Budapest

　　Budapest's stunning Great Synagogue is the world's largest Jewish house of worship outside New York City. Built in 1859, the synagogue has both Romantic and Moorish architectural elements. Inside, the Hungarian Jewish Museum & Archives contains objects relating to both religious and everyday life. On the synagogue’s north side, the...

Castle Hill

Budapest

　　Castle Hill is a kilometre-long limestone plateau towering 170m above the Danube. It contains some of Budapest’s most important medieval monuments and museums and is a Unesco World Heritage Site. Below it is a 28km-long network of caves formed by thermal springs. 　　The walled area consists of two distinct parts:...