The Parliament at dusk, lit up and reflected in the Danube
Photo: Godot13, CC BY-SA 4.0

Budapest

A castle hill on one bank, grand boulevards on the other, hot springs beneath both.

Updated September 2026 8 top sights A 4-day route
Best time
Apr to Jun, Sep to Oct
Days to spend
3 to 4
Airport
Budapest Ferenc Liszt International
Currency
Hungarian forint (HUF)
Language
Hungarian
Getting around
On foot, metro, tram

Budapest is two cities facing each other across the Danube: hilly Buda, with the castle and its old streets, and flat Pest, with the Parliament, the grand boulevards and most of the everyday life. The Chain Bridge joined them in 1849, they became one city in 1873, and much of what you see went up in a rush of building between the 1870s and the First World War. Thermal springs feed the historic baths, the cooking is rich with paprika, and the nights run late.

This guide covers when to go, where to stay, what to see, a four-day route built from real opening hours and walking times, a walk up Andrássy Avenue, a day in Szentendre, what to eat, and the history, music and customs that make the city make sense.

02

What Budapest is good for

Friends' trips

A morning in the outdoor pools of the Széchenyi Baths, lángos at the market, a boat on the Danube as the Parliament lights up, and a long night in the ruin bars of the Jewish Quarter. Eating and drinking out costs less than in most Western European capitals.

Bachelorette and bachelor weekends

Budapest is one of Europe’s big weekend-away cities. Book a river cruise, a wine or pálinka tasting and a late soak at the Rudas Baths, which open for night bathing on Friday and Saturday, then the ruin bars and clubs of the Jewish Quarter.

Weddings and honeymoons

A civil wedding for foreign couples means giving notice well ahead, certified Hungarian translations of your documents and an interpreter, so most couples marry at home and come for the honeymoon: the river at dusk, a night at the opera, the baths, and a few days in the wine country of Tokaj or by Lake Balaton.

Couples

The Danube from the Fisherman’s Bastion at dusk, a night at the opera, dinner in the Castle District and a slow soak under the Ottoman dome of the Rudas Baths.

Families

The Children’s Railway in the Buda Hills, run by children; the zoo and the circus in City Park; the musical fountain and the open-air pools on Margaret Island; and the funicular up to Buda Castle.

Solo travel

Safe by big-city standards, easy to get around, and full of places where eating alone is normal, from market counters to café terraces. A walking tour or an evening in a ruin bar is an easy way to meet people.

Food lovers

Goulash soup, paprika chicken with nokedli, fisherman’s soup, lángos at the Great Market Hall, Dobos torte in a grand café, and Tokaji to finish.

History and art

Roman ruins at Aquincum, Ottoman baths, a royal palace, the neo-Gothic Parliament, and the memorials of 1944 and 1956.

03

Plan your trip

When to go

April to June and September to October bring warm days without the summer heat. July and August are hot, often above 30°C, and busy, with the Sziget Festival on an island in the Danube in August. Winter is cold and gray, but the outdoor thermal pools steam in the frost, and Christmas markets fill Vörösmarty Square and the square before St. Stephen’s Basilica.

How long to stay

Three days covers the Castle District, the Parliament and the Pest center, a bath and a night out. Four days adds Andrássy Avenue, City Park and the Jewish Quarter at a slower pace. With five, add a day on the Danube Bend at Szentendre or Esztergom.

Getting there

Ferenc Liszt International Airport (BUD) is about 16 kilometers southeast of the center. The 100E airport bus runs to Kálvin tér, Astoria and Deák Ferenc tér in about 40 minutes and needs its own ticket, which you can buy by tapping a bank card on board; the cheaper 200E bus connects with metro line 3. Főtaxi runs the official taxi rank, about 30 to 40 minutes to the center. Direct trains from Vienna take about two hours and forty minutes.

Getting around

Walk the center and ride the rest: four metro lines, including the little M1 under Andrássy Avenue, opened in 1896; tram 2 along the Pest riverbank; trams 4 and 6 around the Grand Boulevard, day and night; and buses up into the hills. Tap a bank card on the validators at metro entrances for a single ticket, or buy 24- and 72-hour passes in the BudapestGO app or at machines. A single ticket covers one uninterrupted journey, so switching from metro to tram needs a new one.

Tickets

Book the Parliament tour ahead on the official site: tours last about 45 minutes, sell out in season, and cost less for EU citizens. The upper turrets of the Fisherman’s Bastion charge a small fee by day but are free early and late. Buy bath tickets online to skip the line, and remember that most museums close on Mondays.

Money and tipping

The currency is the forint. Cards work almost everywhere, and some tourist places take euros at poor rates. Many restaurants add a service charge of 10 to 15 percent, szervizdíj, to the bill: if it is there, you need not tip again; if not, leave 10 to 15 percent. Use bank cash machines rather than the independent ones in tourist areas, and pay in forints when a card machine offers to convert.

04

Weather, month by month

Average daytime high, °C Best months
2°
5°
11°
17°
22°
25°
28°
27°
22°
16°
8°
3°
Dots under each month: how busy the city gets, one to five.

Spring

March to May

Cool in March and warm by May, when the chestnut trees flower on Margaret Island and along the avenues.

Summer

June to August

Hot, often above 30°C in July and August, with long evenings by the river and in the garden bars. Storms can blow up in the afternoon.

Autumn

September to November

Warm Septembers, when the wine festival fills the courtyards of Buda Castle, and golden Octobers, cooling into a gray, damp November.

Winter

December to February

Cold, often around freezing, with short days and some snow. Christmas markets in December, and the outdoor pools steaming in the frost.

05

Top sights

  1. The east front of the Parliament on Kossuth Square, with an equestrian statue in front01

    The Parliament

    Imre Steindl’s neo-Gothic Parliament, begun in 1885 and finished in 1904, runs for 268 meters along the Danube. Its dome rises 96 meters, a nod to 896, the year the Magyars are said to have arrived, and the Holy Crown of Hungary has been on show beneath it since 2000.

    Book the guided tour, about 45 minutes, on the official site; tickets sell out in season. For the classic view, look back at it from the Buda riverbank at dusk.

    Photo: kallerna, CC BY-SA 4.0
  2. The Royal Palace of Buda Castle and its green dome in early morning sun, above the old walls02

    Buda Castle

    The Royal Palace has been rebuilt again and again since the Middle Ages, most recently after the siege of 1944 to 1945. It now holds the Hungarian National Gallery and the Budapest History Museum, and its terraces look down on the Chain Bridge and across the river to the Parliament.

    Ride the funicular of 1870 up from Clark Ádám Square, or take bus 16 from Deák Ferenc tér, which is cheaper. The museums close on Mondays.

    Photo: VargaA, CC BY-SA 4.0
  3. Matthias Church with its patterned tile roof and Gothic tower, beside a white turret of the Fisherman’s Bastion03

    The Fisherman’s Bastion and Matthias Church

    Frigyes Schulek built the white lookout terraces of the Fisherman’s Bastion between 1895 and 1902, with seven turrets for the seven Magyar tribes, as a stage around Matthias Church, which he had restored. The church, roofed in glazed Zsolnay tiles, saw Franz Joseph and Elisabeth crowned king and queen of Hungary in 1867.

    The lower terraces are free. The upper turrets charge a small fee by day but are free early in the morning and late in the evening, the best times anyway.

    Photo: xorge, CC BY-SA 2.0
  4. Looking up into the gilded, painted dome of St. Stephen’s Basilica04

    St. Stephen’s Basilica

    One of the largest churches in Hungary, finished in 1905 after half a century of building and as tall as the Parliament, at 96 meters. A side chapel keeps the Holy Right, the mummified right hand of St. Stephen, Hungary’s first king.

    Take the lift, and a last flight of steps, to the terrace around the dome for a view over the roofs of Pest.

    Photo: Carlos Delgado, CC BY-SA 3.0
  5. Steam rising from the outdoor pools of the Széchenyi Baths in winter, the yellow neo-baroque wings around them05

    The Széchenyi Baths

    Budapest sits on more than a hundred thermal springs, and the Széchenyi, opened in City Park in 1913, is the grandest place to try them: a yellow neo-baroque palace with three outdoor pools and fifteen indoor ones, where men play chess in the hot water all year.

    Buy tickets online and bring flip-flops and a towel. A phased renovation began in August 2026: the baths stay open, but some indoor sections close in turn. The Gellért Baths are closed for renovation until at least 2028; the Rudas, under its 16th-century Ottoman dome, is the other classic.

    Photo: Slyronit, CC BY-SA 4.0
  6. The iron roof and stalls of the Great Market Hall, with winter light streaming in06

    The Great Market Hall

    Samu Pecz’s market hall of 1897, iron and glass under a roof of colored Zsolnay tiles, stands at the Pest end of the Liberty Bridge. The ground floor sells paprika, salami, cheese and produce; the gallery upstairs has food counters and souvenirs.

    Closed on Sundays and early on Saturdays. Come in the morning, when locals do their shopping, and eat lángos upstairs.

    Photo: Erudy, Public domain
  7. The Moorish Revival front of the Dohány Street Synagogue, with two onion-domed towers07

    The Dohány Street Synagogue

    Built from 1854 to 1859 in Moorish Revival style, it is the largest synagogue in Europe, with seats for about 3,000. In the garden behind it, the Tree of Life, a weeping willow in metal, carries the names of Hungarian Jews killed in the Holocaust on its leaves, and the Hungarian Jewish Museum stands next door.

    Closed on Saturdays and Jewish holidays, with shorter hours on Fridays: check the days before you go. Cover shoulders and knees.

    Photo: Suicasmo, CC BY-SA 4.0
  8. View from Gellért Hill over the white Elisabeth Bridge and the rooftops of Pest08

    Gellért Hill and the Citadella

    The rocky hill above the Elisabeth Bridge is named for Bishop Gerard, killed by pagan rebels in 1046 and, the story goes, rolled down it in a barrel. On top stand the Liberty Statue of 1947 and the Citadella, the fortress the Habsburgs built after the revolution of 1848 to keep watch over the city.

    The Citadella reopened in April 2026 after years of works, with a free park and new lookout terraces. The climb from the Elisabeth Bridge takes about half an hour.

    Photo: Юлия Можаровская, CC BY-SA 4.0

Three hidden gems

The octagonal stone tomb of Gül Baba with its lead dome, on the Rose Hill
The tomb of Gül BabaAn Ottoman tomb in a rose garden · Photo: Marek Mróz, CC BY-SA 4.0
A red and cream diesel train of the Children’s Railway at a station in the Buda Hills woods
The Children’s RailwayA forest line run by children · Photo: Jakub Hałun, CC BY-SA 4.0
A carved wooden spiral staircase in a paneled reading room of the Szabó Ervin Library
The Szabó Ervin LibraryReading rooms in a count’s palace · Photo: kkmarais, CC BY 2.0
06

Budapest in 4 days, routed

30 of Budapest’s best-loved sights, routed into 4 days by the same engine that plans every SwipeSights trip: nearby stops share a day, walks stay short, and each stop is timed around its opening hours.

1Day 1

Friday

7 stops · 3.8 km between them · starts 09:00
  1. 09:001Central Market Hall~1.25 hours 4.3
  2. ~7 min walk (397m)
  3. 10:222Ponte della Libertà~25 min 4.9
  4. ~7 min walk (356m)
  5. 10:523Gellért Hill Cave~1.25 hours 4.4
  6. ~21 min walk (1.4km)
  7. 12:214Elisabeth Bridge~20 min 4.6
  8. ~8 min walk (433m)
  9. 12:47Lunch Break1 hour
  10. 13:475St. Gerard Sagredo Statue~15 min 4.6
  11. ~7 min walk (409m)
  12. 14:096Citadel~2 hours 4.6
  13. ~13 min walk (813m)
  14. 16:227Garden of Philosophers~20 min 4.7
  15. 16:42Dinner Break1 hour
2Day 2

Saturday

8 stops · 13.2 km between them · starts 10:00
  1. 10:001Metropolitan Ervin Szabó Library~1.5 hours 4.6
  2. ~10 min by taxi/transit (2.2km)
  3. 12:002Szimpla Kert~1.5 hours 4.6
  4. ~13 min by taxi/transit (3.3km)
  5. 13:43Lunch Break1 hour
  6. 14:433Vajdahunyad Castle~1.25 hours 4.7
  7. ~8 min walk (446m)
  8. 15:594Heroes' Square~45 min 4.7
  9. ~10 min walk (590m)
  10. 16:545City Park2.5-3.5 hours 4.7
  11. ~16 min by taxi/transit (4.6km)
  12. 20:10Dinner Break1 hour
  13. 21:106Vörösmarty Square~1 hour 4.6
  14. ~27 min walk (1.9km)
  15. 22:377Semmelweis Museum~2 hours 4.5
  16. ~3 min walk (193m)
  17. 00:408Castle Garden Bazaar~1.25 hours 4.6
3Day 3

Sunday

7 stops · 2.1 km between them · starts 09:00
  1. 09:001The Church of Our Lady of Buda Castle~55 min 4.8
  2. ~3 min walk (74m)
  3. 09:562Fisherman's Bastion~1.5 hours 4.8
  4. ~5 min walk (247m)
  5. 11:31Lunch Break1 hour
  6. 12:313Golden Eagle Pharmacy Museum~2 hours 4.3
  7. ~11 min walk (693m)
  8. 14:424Budai Castle Tunnel~15 min 4.6
  9. ~3 min walk (90m)
  10. 15:005Zero Kilometre Stone~10 min 4.4
  11. ~7 min walk (400m)
  12. 15:176Széchenyi Chain Bridge~25 min 4.7
  13. ~10 min walk (614m)
  14. 15:507Buda Castle2.5-3.5 hours 4.7
  15. 18:50Dinner Break1 hour
4Day 4

Monday

8 stops · 8.1 km between them · starts 09:00
  1. 09:001Golden Duck~20 min 4.8
  2. ~20 min walk (1.4km)
  3. 09:382Kossuth Lajos Square~45 min 4.7
  4. ~5 min walk (207m)
  5. 10:283Hungarian Parliament Building~1.5 hours 4.8
  6. ~7 min walk (361m)
  7. 11:584Shoes on the Danube Bank~15 min 4.7
  8. ~10 min walk (611m)
  9. 12:235Liberty Square~55 min 4.6
  10. ~10 min walk (618m)
  11. 13:26Lunch Break1 hour
  12. 14:266St. Stephen's Basilica~45 min 4.7
  13. ~22 min walk (1.5km)
  14. 15:337House of Terror Museum~2 hours 4.1
  15. ~13 min by taxi/transit (3.4km)
  16. 17:468Margaret Island2-3 hours 4.7
  17. 20:16Dinner Break1 hour
Open the full route
07Budapest · A walk

Up Andrássy Avenue to the baths

A straight avenue of palaces, theaters and villas from the center to City Park, laid out in the 1870s, with the oldest underground railway on the continent beneath it. Walk up, soak at the Széchenyi Baths, and ride back below.

The neo-Renaissance Hungarian State Opera House on Andrássy Avenue, seen from the side street
The Opera House, opened in 1884.Jorge Láscar from Australia, CC BY 2.0, Wikimedia Commons

Andrássy Avenue was laid out from 1872 and opened in 1876, a straight boulevard of a little over two kilometers from the edge of the old center to City Park, with grand apartment houses at the city end and villas at the far end. Since 2002 it has been on the World Heritage list together with the little underground railway that runs beneath it. Start at the city end, a few minutes from Deák Ferenc tér.

A small yellow train of the M1 line in Kodály körönd station, with green iron columns and tiled walls
The M1 at Kodály körönd: the first underground railway on the European continent, opened in 1896.Random photos 1989, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

A few minutes up stands Miklós Ybl’s Opera House, opened in 1884, with statues of Ferenc Erkel and Franz Liszt in niches by the entrance. It reopened in 2022 after a long renovation, and the afternoon tours take you up the grand staircase into the gilded auditorium. Across the avenue, the Drechsler Palace, an early work of Ödön Lechner, is now a hotel. A little farther, Liszt Ferenc Square opens on the right, lined with café terraces, with the Art Nouveau Academy of Music at its far end.

At the Oktogon the avenue crosses the Grand Boulevard. Beyond it, at number 60, the House of Terror museum fills the building where the Arrow Cross in 1944 and then the communist secret police held and tortured prisoners, and portraits of their victims line the wall outside. Almost opposite, on the corner of Vörösmarty utca, the Old Academy of Music keeps the apartment where Liszt lived from 1881 to 1886, with his pianos.

Heroes’ Square: a tall column topped by the archangel Gabriel between two curved colonnades of statues
Heroes’ Square, begun for the millennium of 1896.Suicasmo, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The avenue widens into the Kodály körönd, a circus with statues of four Hungarian heroes, where Zoltán Kodály lived from 1924 until his death in 1967; his apartment is a small museum. Beyond it, villas and embassies stand back behind their gardens. The walk ends at Heroes’ Square, begun for the millennium of 1896: the archangel Gabriel on his column, the chieftains of the Magyar conquest around its base, the Museum of Fine Arts on one side and the Hall of Art on the other.

Behind the square, City Park opens out: the lake, Vajdahunyad Castle and the Széchenyi Baths, where you can spend the rest of the day in the hot outdoor pools. Ride back down the avenue on the M1 from the Széchenyi fürdő stop. Opened in 1896, it was the first underground railway on the European continent, and its stations keep their tiled walls and wooden ticket booths.

08

Where to stay

Pick the neighborhood first, then the hotel. Each link opens a map of places to stay around it.

Belváros

First visit

The Inner City, between the Chain Bridge and the Great Market Hall: Váci utca, Vörösmarty Square and the riverside promenade. Central and walkable, with the busiest streets and the highest prices.

See hotels in Belváros

Lipótváros

Families and comfort

Elegant streets around the Parliament and St. Stephen’s Basilica, a few blocks from the Danube. Calm at night, well connected and full of good restaurants.

See hotels in Lipótváros

Erzsébetváros

Nightlife

The old Jewish Quarter: synagogues by day, ruin bars and clubs by night. In the middle of everything, and loud until late on weekends.

See hotels in Erzsébetváros

Terézváros

Culture and cafés

Andrássy Avenue, the Opera, the theaters of Nagymező utca and the café terraces of Liszt Ferenc Square. Grand apartment houses and lively evenings, quieter off the avenue.

See hotels in Terézváros

Castle District

Couples

Cobbled streets inside the old walls of Castle Hill, around Matthias Church and the palace. At its best in the evening once the day visitors leave; hilly, with fewer restaurants and a bus ride down to Pest.

See hotels in Castle District

Palace Quarter

Budget and local life

Behind the National Museum in Józsefváros: a grid of 19th-century aristocratic palaces now full of cafés, bars and students, with good-value rooms and quick metro links.

See hotels in Palace Quarter

The 10 best budget hotels

Well-reviewed hotels at the lower end of Budapest’s prices, best-reviewed first. On a weeknight in November 2026 they cost about €45 to €90 for two; prices change daily, so check your own dates.

  1. Hotel Oktogon Haggenmacher by Continental Group, Terézváros01

    Hotel Oktogon Haggenmacher by Continental Group

    9.8
    9,563 reviews

    Terézváros

    18 min walk to Deák Ferenc tér

    See prices
  2. Eurostars Palazzo Zichy, Palace Quarter02

    Eurostars Palazzo Zichy

    9.6
    2,365 reviews

    Palace Quarter

    13 min walk to the Great Market Hall

    See prices
  3. Ikonik Parlament, Lipótváros03

    Ikonik Parlament

    9.6
    2,195 reviews

    Lipótváros

    9 min walk to the Parliament

    See prices
  4. T62 Hotel, Terézváros04

    T62 Hotel

    9.4
    11,354 reviews

    Terézváros

    14 min walk to the Parliament

    See prices
  5. Bo18 Hotel Superior, Józsefváros05

    Bo18 Hotel Superior

    9.4
    7,430 reviews

    Józsefváros

    18 min walk to the Great Market Hall

    See prices
  6. Bohem Art Hotel, Belváros06

    Bohem Art Hotel

    9.4
    5,783 reviews

    Belváros

    5 min walk to the Great Market Hall

    See prices
  7. Three Corners Hotel Anna, Palace Quarter07

    Three Corners Hotel Anna

    9.4
    5,185 reviews

    Palace Quarter

    17 min walk to the Great Market Hall

    See prices
  8. Opera Garden Hotel & Apartments, Terézváros08

    Opera Garden Hotel & Apartments

    9.4
    4,376 reviews

    Terézváros

    12 min walk to Deák Ferenc tér

    See prices
  9. Dean's Home Budapest, Ferencváros09

    Dean's Home Budapest

    9.2
    12,080 reviews

    Ferencváros

    26 min walk to the Great Market Hall

    See prices
  10. Florin Apart Hotel, Erzsébetváros10

    Florin Apart Hotel

    9.2
    7,946 reviews

    Erzsébetváros

    5 min walk to Deák Ferenc tér

    See prices

Hotel links go to Stay22. If you book, we may earn a commission, at no cost to you.

09

Food and drink

Hungarian cooking is built on paprika, onions, lard and sour cream: rich soups and stews, stuffed cabbage, and pastries that take their cue from Vienna. Lunch is often the main meal, and many restaurants serve a cheaper daily menu, the napi menü, at midday on weekdays.

A bowl of red goulash soup with beef and potatoes

Gulyás

The herdsmen’s soup of beef, onions, paprika, potatoes and carrots. In Hungary goulash is a soup; the thick stew is pörkölt.

Photo: Christo, CC BY-SA 4.0
Fisherman’s soup: a piece of carp in a deep red paprika broth

Halászlé

Fisherman’s soup of river fish, carp above all, in a fiery paprika broth. Hungarians eat it on Christmas Eve.

Photo: János Korom Dr. from Wien, Austria, CC BY-SA 2.0
Chicken in a creamy paprika sauce beside nokedli dumplings

Paprikás csirke

Chicken simmered in paprika and sour cream, served with nokedli, small soft dumplings.

Photo: Atilla the Great, CC BY-SA 4.0
Two stuffed cabbage rolls in a red sauce on a flowered plate

Töltött káposzta

Cabbage leaves stuffed with pork and rice, cooked on sauerkraut and topped with sour cream.

Photo: Silar, CC BY-SA 4.0
A lángos spread with sour cream and grated cheese, served on paper

Lángos

Deep-fried dough rubbed with garlic and spread with sour cream and grated cheese: the market and beach snack.

Photo: Elekes Andor, CC BY-SA 4.0
A whole Dobos torte topped with a ring of caramel wedges

Dobos torta

Thin layers of sponge and chocolate buttercream under a lid of hard caramel, created by the Pest confectioner József C. Dobos in 1885.

Photo: Christo, CC BY-SA 4.0
Two chimney cakes roasting on spits over glowing charcoal

Kürtőskalács

Chimney cake: sweet dough wound around a spit, roasted over coals and rolled in sugar, a Transylvanian treat sold at markets and fairs.

Photo: Cluj Napoca, CC BY 2.0
Somlói galuska in a glass bowl, topped with whipped cream and chocolate sauce

Somlói galuska

Sponge cake layered with vanilla cream, walnuts and raisins, served with chocolate sauce and whipped cream.

Photo: Illustratedjc, CC BY-SA 3.0

Eat at an étkezde, a small lunch canteen, for home cooking, at the counters upstairs in the Great Market Hall for lángos, and in the grand cafés, the Gerbeaud, the New York and the Centrál, for cake. The Jewish Quarter and the streets around Liszt Ferenc Square have the densest choice of restaurants.

10Budapest · History

The bridge that made Budapest

In the last days of 1820 a young count waited a week for a boat across the ice-choked Danube. The bridge he willed into being joined two towns that soon became one city.

Painting of a crowd in 1840s dress under the timber scaffolding of the bridge abutment, gathered for the laying of the foundation stone
Laying the Foundation Stone of the Chain Bridge, 24 August 1842. Miklós Barabás, 1864. Hungarian National Museum.Miklós Barabás, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

For most of their history Buda and Pest were separate towns: Buda on its castle hill, the seat of kings, and Pest on the flat eastern bank, a market town that grew rich on trade. From 1767 a bridge of boats joined them in the warm months, but it was taken apart every winter, and when ice floes ran in the river even the ferries stopped.

Portrait of Count István Széchenyi in a dark coat trimmed with fur and gold cords
Count István Széchenyi. Miklós Barabás, 1848.Miklós Barabás, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

In the last days of 1820, Count István Széchenyi reached Pest on his way to his father’s funeral and found the river choked with ice. For a week no boatman would risk the crossing. He wrote in his diary that he would give a year’s income for a permanent bridge, and he spent much of the next thirty years getting one built.

One of the stone lions guarding the Chain Bridge, its mouth open
One of János Marschalkó’s lions, set at the ends of the bridge in 1852.Jarba, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

He founded a bridge company in 1832 and pushed a law through the Diet in 1836 that made everyone pay the toll on the new bridge, nobles included, a break with the old rule that nobles paid no tolls. The English engineer William Tierney Clark designed a suspension bridge hung from iron chains, and a Scottish engineer of the same surname, Adam Clark, came to build it. The foundation stone was laid on 24 August 1842.

Then came revolution. In March 1848 it broke out in Pest, and that autumn Széchenyi, by then a minister in Hungary’s first government, suffered a breakdown; he spent his last years in an asylum near Vienna and never saw his bridge in use. In 1849 Austrian troops tried to blow it up, but Adam Clark had flooded the chambers that anchor its chains, and only one charge went off, doing little harm. The bridge opened on 20 November 1849.

Before the bridge the river decided when Buda and Pest could meet; afterward they were one city in all but name.

The city grew around it. Clark stayed, married a Hungarian, and dug the tunnel under Castle Hill that continues the line of the bridge, open to carriages from 1857; the square between the two now carries his name. In 1873 Buda, Pest and Óbuda were joined as one city, Budapest, and more bridges followed. The stone lions at either end, carved by János Marschalkó and set in place in 1852, do have tongues; they just cannot be seen from the pavement, whatever the old joke says.

Black and white photograph of the Chain Bridge after it was blown up: a stone tower standing in the river, the chains in the water, the ruined palace on the hill behind
The Chain Bridge and the Royal Palace in 1945.Kurutz Márton, Fortepan, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

By the middle of January 1945, during the siege of the city, every bridge across the Danube in Budapest had been destroyed; retreating German troops blew up the Chain Bridge on 18 January, leaving only its two stone towers standing. Rebuilt, it reopened on 20 November 1949, a hundred years to the day after the first opening. Since a renovation from 2021 to 2023 it has been closed to private cars, and crossing it on foot at dusk, the palace lit on one side and the Parliament on the other, is the best short walk in the city.

11

Art

Painting of a party in 1870s dress picnicking on a green hillside under a blue sky
Picnic in May. Pál Szinyei Merse, 1873. Hungarian National Gallery.Pál Szinyei Merse, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
Painting of the ruined Greek theater of Taormina above a blue bay, Etna white with snow under a yellow sky
Ruins of the Greek Theater at Taormina. Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka, 1904 to 1905. Hungarian National Gallery.Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons
The green and yellow tiled roof of Ödön Lechner’s former Postal Savings Bank, seen from above
Ödön Lechner’s Postal Savings Bank, opened in 1901: a roof of Zsolnay tiles.AwOiSoAk KaOsIoWa, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons

The Hungarian National Gallery

In the Royal Palace: Gothic altarpieces, 19th-century painters such as Mihály Munkácsy and Pál Szinyei Merse, whose Picnic in May glows with open-air color, and the visionary landscapes of Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka, among them his vast Ruins of the Greek Theater at Taormina. Closed on Mondays.

The Museum of Fine Arts

On Heroes’ Square: Old Masters from Raphael to Goya, a room of El Grecos, Egyptian antiquities, and the Romanesque Hall, restored and reopened in 2018 after decades as a storeroom.

Art Nouveau

Ödön Lechner roofed his buildings in colored Zsolnay ceramics: the Postal Savings Bank of 1901, the Institute of Geology and the Museum of Applied Arts, which has been closed for renovation since 2017, so check before you go. The Gresham Palace by the Chain Bridge is Art Nouveau from its gates to its glass roof.

Photography

Hungary gave the world André Kertész, Brassaï, Robert Capa and László Moholy-Nagy. The Robert Capa Contemporary Photography Center and the Mai Manó House on Nagymező utca show photography in the center.

The new City Park

Sou Fujimoto’s House of Music Hungary, opened in 2022 under a roof pierced with light wells, and the new Museum of Ethnography, opened the same year, stand among the trees behind Heroes’ Square.

12Budapest · Literature

Budapest on the page

A poet of 1848, a boys’ novel set on a vacant lot in Józsefváros, a poem written on the steps of the quay, and a Nobel laureate who came home to tell what he had lived through.

Sándor Petőfi

1823 to 1849

Petőfi worked in Pest as an editor in the 1840s and became the best-loved poet in the language, writing in the plain speech of the countryside. His National Song was read to the crowds on 15 March 1848, the first day of the revolution. He fell in battle at Segesvár the next summer, aged 26, and his body was never found. His statue has stood by the Danube on Petőfi Square since 1882.

Ferenc Molnár

1878 to 1952

Born in Józsefváros, Molnár set The Paul Street Boys (1906) there: two gangs of schoolboys fight over a vacant timber yard, the grund. It is still read in Hungarian schools, and a bronze group of its boys plays marbles outside a school on Práter utca. He was also a hit playwright and a regular at the New York Café, where, the story goes, he threw the front door key into the Danube so that the café could never close.

Attila József

1905 to 1937

Born in Ferencváros and raised in poverty, József became one of the great Hungarian poets of the 20th century and died at 32. His poem By the Danube (1936) opens with the poet sitting on the lowest step of the quay, watching a melon rind float away. László Marton’s bronze of him sits on just such a step beside the Parliament, with lines of the poem set into the stone.

Imre Kertész

1929 to 2016

Born in Budapest, Kertész was deported in 1944, at 14, to Auschwitz and Buchenwald. He came home and, years later, wrote Fatelessness (1975), the story of a boy who lives through the camps. In 2002 he became the first Hungarian to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Tell me, old stream, how oft thy bosom strong

Is cleft by storms and ships that glide along?

How deep and wide these cuts! On heart of man

Inflict such wounds no grief or passion can.

Yet when the ship is gone, the storm is o’er,

The stream rolls smoothly, showing rifts no more.

Sándor Petőfi, On the Danube, translated by William N. Loew, in Gems from Petőfi and Other Hungarian Poets (1881)

The gilded columns, twisted pillars and glowing lamps of the New York Café
The New York Café, opened in 1894, where writers of the Nyugat circle met.Yelkrokoyade, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
Bronze statue of the poet Attila József sitting on the embankment steps, the Parliament behind
Attila József in bronze by the Danube, beside the Parliament. László Marton, 1980.Veronika.szappanos, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
13

Culture

15 March

The anniversary of the 1848 revolution: red, white and green cockades pinned to coats, flags on the trams, and wreaths laid at the National Museum.

St. Stephen’s Day

On 20 August, the national holiday, the day ends with fireworks over the Danube.

Bath culture

The Romans bathed in the springs, the Ottomans built domed baths such as the Rudas and the Király, and the spa age added palaces like the Széchenyi and the Gellért. Hungarians go for their health as much as for fun.

Christmas

From late November, markets fill Vörösmarty Square and the square before St. Stephen’s Basilica, with mulled wine, chimney cake and a light show on the basilica front.

Budapest on film

The city has stood in for Buenos Aires, Berlin and Moscow on screen, and László Nemes’s Son of Saul, set in Auschwitz and made in Hungary, won the Oscar for best foreign language film in 2016.

14

Music and nights out

Liszt

Franz Liszt founded the Academy of Music in 1875; its Art Nouveau home on Liszt Ferenc Square, opened in 1907, is a working concert hall, and the flat where he lived his last years is a small museum near Andrássy Avenue.

The Opera

Miklós Ybl’s neo-Renaissance opera house of 1884 reopened in 2022 after renovation, with guided tours every afternoon and performances most nights of the season.

Bartók and folk music

Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály collected village songs across the country. In a dance house, a táncház, you can still learn the steps to a live folk band.

Concerts

Müpa, the Palace of Arts on the Pest riverbank, holds the Béla Bartók National Concert Hall, a theater and the Ludwig Museum of contemporary art, and the Liszt Academy’s great hall is the other big stage for orchestras.

Nights out

Ruin bars in the courtyards of old apartment houses in the Jewish Quarter, Szimpla Kert first among them since the early 2000s; concerts on the A38, a converted cargo ship moored below the Petőfi Bridge; and Sziget, a festival of several days on an island in the Danube every August.

15

Nature and day trips

Margaret Island

A park island in the Danube between Buda and Pest, with a running track of about five kilometers, rose gardens, a musical fountain, the ruins of a medieval convent and the Palatinus open-air pools.

City Park

Városliget, behind Heroes’ Square: the Széchenyi Baths, the fairy-tale Vajdahunyad Castle, the zoo, and a lake that becomes an outdoor ice rink in winter.

The Buda Hills

Forests a tram ride from the center. Take the cogwheel railway and the Children’s Railway up to János Hill, the highest point in the city, with the Elizabeth Lookout on top, and ride the chairlift down.

The Danube embankment

Walk the Pest bank from the Parliament past the Shoes on the Danube Bank, the memorial to the Jews shot into the river in 1944 and 1945, to the Chain Bridge. Tram 2 follows the same line.

Day trips

The Danube Bend: Szentendre by suburban train in about 40 minutes, the castle at Visegrád and the great basilica at Esztergom by bus, train or, in summer, by boat. Lake Balaton is about two hours away.

16Traveler’s notes

A day in Szentendre

Forty minutes up the Danube by suburban train from Batthyány tér, a small baroque town of Serbian churches, artists and cobbled lanes, with the national open-air museum in the hills behind it.

Szentendre’s main square with an iron cross on a stone pillar and a church tower behind
The main square is ringed by the houses of Serbian merchants who settled here after 1690; they raised the iron Merchants’ Cross in 1763, and the tower behind belongs to the Blagoveštenska church, consecrated in 1754.DimiTalen, CC0, Wikimedia Commons
The red and yellow baroque tower of the Belgrade Cathedral in Szentendre against a blue sky
A few streets away, in a walled garden, the Belgrade Cathedral, built from 1762 to 1764, is the cathedral of the Serbian Orthodox bishops of Buda.upsalatty, CC BY 2.5, Wikimedia Commons
An old wooden farmhouse with a shingle roof and a well sweep in front, at the open-air museum
A short bus ride out of town, the Skanzen gathers farmhouses, churches and mills from every region of Hungary; this house, from the Upper Tisza, dates from the 18th century.Jörg Blobelt, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons
17

People and customs

Names first

Hungarians put the family name first: Petőfi Sándor, Liszt Ferenc. Hungarian is not related to the languages of its neighbors, so a köszönöm (thank you) is always appreciated.

Greetings

Say jó napot (good day) when you walk into a shop; szia is hello and goodbye among friends.

Beer glasses

Many Hungarians still do not clink beer glasses. Legend says Austrian officers clinked theirs to celebrate the execution of thirteen Hungarian generals at Arad in 1849, and the vow never to do it was meant to last 150 years. Wine and pálinka glasses are fine: egészségedre!

At the baths

Bring flip-flops, a towel and a swimsuit. The thermal pools are for soaking, not swimming, and lap pools usually require a swimming cap.

Name days

Every day of the calendar belongs to a first name, and Hungarians celebrate their name day almost like a birthday.

Shoes off

Hungarians take their shoes off at home, and hosts often have slippers ready.

18

Questions

How many days do you need in Budapest?

Three days covers the Castle District, the Parliament, the Pest center, a bath and a night out. Four days adds Andrássy Avenue, City Park and the Jewish Quarter, and five leaves time for a day on the Danube Bend.

Where should I stay in Budapest on a first visit?

Belváros or Lipótváros, on the Pest side, where everything is walkable and the metro is close. The Jewish Quarter is best for nightlife, the Castle District for quiet evenings, and the Palace Quarter for value.

When is the best time to visit Budapest?

April to June and September to October, when days are warm without the summer heat. July and August are hot and busy, and winter is cold, with Christmas markets and steaming outdoor pools.

How do I get from Budapest Airport to the city center?

Take the 100E airport bus to Kálvin tér, Astoria or Deák Ferenc tér, about 40 minutes, with its own ticket that you can buy by tapping a card on board. A taxi from the official Főtaxi rank takes 30 to 40 minutes.

Which thermal bath should I visit in Budapest?

The Széchenyi for its big outdoor pools and grand setting, or the Rudas for its Ottoman dome, rooftop pool and night bathing on weekends. The Gellért Baths are closed for renovation until at least 2028.

Is Budapest good for a bachelorette or a group trip?

Yes: river cruises, wine and pálinka tastings, a late soak at the baths, and ruin bars and clubs that stay open into the morning, all at lower prices than most Western European capitals.

Keep readingSwipeSights for studentsSpring break in Budapest on a budget, with the free places marked.Budapest in 4 days, stop by stopThe full route on its own page, with every stop on the map.Vienna travel guideThe Habsburg capital, under three hours up the Danube by train.Prague travel guideCastle, bridge and beer halls, for the classic Prague, Vienna and Budapest trip.

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