Things to Do in Budapest

Rising 140 meters on the west side of the Danube, Gellért Hill is crowned with the fortified hulk of Citadella, which provides one of the best viewpoints in Budapest. From the ramparts there are far-reaching panoramas north to Buda Castle, and down the river to Széchenyi Chain Bridge, St Stephen’s Basilica and the Parliament House. Constructed by occupying Austrian forces in the 1840s, the citadel was loathed by the Hungarians, who tore down its fortified gates when the Austrians eventually left the city in 1897. Its 60 canon placements still remain, as do the six-meter ‘U’-shaped walls of the fort.

During World War II an air raid shelter was built in the Citadella, and this now houses a small museum about the war. In 1956, Soviet troops suppressed the Hungarian rebellion against Communism by firing heavy artillery from the fortress and Russian artillery is still scattered around the complex.

Gellért Hill is one of Budapest's most romantic nights out. Just grab a bottle of the city's famous red wine, a couple of glasses, and your beloved. It might be a bit of a trek up there, but the view of twinkling lights will amply reward you.

The views you'll see over the Danube are best seen from the Citadel, built by the Austrians after their victory over the Hungarians in the 19th century. In fact, the monuments on Gellért Hill all have a somewhat painful history.

The girl posing with the palm of victory symbolizes the Russian liberation of the city after WWII, but as the liberation turned into an occupation, its presence has been disputed.

And Gellért himself? A martyred saint whose efforts at conversion ended with him being killed by angry pagans in a nail-filled barrel rolled down the hill (ouch!). He's commemorated by an immense statue.

Budapest’s Chain Bridge was the city’s first – and is still its most famous – crossing of the Danube, connecting Baroque Buda on the western river bank with the wide boulevards of Pest on the east. Opened in 1849, the bridge is 375 meters long and 16 meters wide; it is made of made of stone slabs and suspended in place by two massive linked iron chains. Originally a toll bridge, it was designed by English engineer Alan Clark, who also had a hand in Hammersmith Bridge across the River Thames in London. The stone lions guarding both ends of the Chain Bridge were carved by János Marschalkó and added in 1852.

From the Buda side of the Chain Bridge a road tunnel leads northwards underneath Castle Hill; as the bridge united the east and west sides of the city it was indirectly responsible for Budapest’s rapid flowering as a major metropolis in the late 19th century.

Several bridges cross the Danube River connecting Buda and Pest, the two sides of Budapest, Hungary. The Elisabeth Bridge was named after the Hapsburg Queen Elisabeth, who was the wife of Francis Joseph I. An international competition was held in 1894 for the design of the bridge, and construction began in 1897. The bridge was inaugurated on Oct. 10, 1903, and until 1926, it was the largest chain-type bridge in the world. Unfortunately Elisabeth Bridge was bombed by German troops towards the end of World War II, and it was the only bridge in Budapest so badly damaged that it had to be completely replaced. From 1960 to 1964, nearly two decades after the original bridge was destroyed, the new bridge was built in the same place to reconnect Gellért Hill on the Buda side to Ferenciek Ter on the Pest side of the city.

This beautiful neo-classical cathedral is the biggest church in Budapest and sits on the imposing square of Szent István. Its serene façade is decorated with statues of the 12 Apostles and has twin clock towers, a vast cupola and an imposing colonnaded doorway leading on to a barn-like interior illuminated through jewel-like stained-glass windows.

Among the carved wooden pews, marble statuary, frescoed ceilings and gilded ornamentation, the opulent basilica’s most holy relic is found in the small dark chapel to the left of the elaborate main altar. The mummified and bejeweled hand of St Stephen, who was both first king and patron saint of Hungary back in the ninth century, lies preserved in a delicate glass cabinet. The basilica can accommodate 8,500 worshippers and was built during the late 19th century during the expansion of Budapest for the Millennium celebrations. Much of the later design work was by Miklós Ybl, designer of the Hungarian State Opera House.

Dohány Street Synagogue is the largest functioning synagogue in Europe, and one of the largest in the world, so it deserves its other title, the Grand Synagogue. Why else is it grand? The scale is matched by its decoration - the synagogue has a Byzantine feel, with gleaming onion domes and eight-pointed stars chased into the exterior walls.

The rose windows and the organ may put you in mind of a Christian church (the organ and the acoustics of the grand space make the synagogue a popular spot for concerts). But the towers that top the building - and that are meant to echo the pillars of Solomon's palace - remind you where you are. The synagogue was built on the boundaries of the Jewish Ghetto, where the Jews of the city retreated when they were banished from the city walls in the 18th century. The synagogue also played a part in the dreadful happenings of WWII, when it served as a shelter for the city's Jews, many of whom died here in the winter of 1944 - 45.

The new kid on Budapest’s entertainment block, Gozsdu Courtyard is at the heart of the city’s newly revamped Jewish Quarter and has become the destination of choice edgy nightlife and bar hopping. Running between Dob utca and the cool design stores of Király utca, Gozsdu comprises a series of interconnecting courtyards lined with balconied townhouses and was built in the early 20th century. Once home to workshops and tenements, the courtyards became part of the Jewish ghetto in World War II, with thousands of Jews incarcerated here. Happily the complex was given a glamorous facelift in the 2009 and now positively overflows with smart cafés, ruin bars and restaurants featuring international cuisines from Yiddish to Thai; it’s a city hotspot and on summer evenings the crowds spill out into the open air.

At the entrance to Budapest's City Park, Heroes' Square (or Hősök tere) features an impressive semi-circular sweep of columns and statues and a cenotaph honoring the fallen of the 1956 uprising. On either side of the square are the Museum of Fine Art and the Exhibition Hall, which now shows contemporary art.

At the peak of the semi-circle is a statue of the Angel Gabriel bestowing the Hungarian Crown on St. Stephen. Lower down is a rugged band of chieftans on horses with antler bridles - this is Árpád and other leaders from an early Magyar civilization. Other statues represent various leaders and statesman as well as abstract values like war and peace.

The elegant boulevard of Andrássy Avenue was completed in 1885 as part of the expansion of Budapest under Emperor Franz Joseph I to celebrate the thousand-year anniversary of the state of Hungary. It connects the Pest-side city center at Erzsébet Square to the City Park (Városliget) and as a masterpiece of urban planning was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in 2002, along with Heroes’ Square.

Elegant townhouses lined the avenue and it became the preserve of wealthy bankers and the aristocracy. In order to conserve Andrássy’s architectural harmony, the city fathers decided to build a train line underneath the avenue. And so the Millennium Underground Railway opened, the first in continental Europe; it was first used to transport people from the city center to Városliget, which was the focus of the millennium celebrations in 1896.

Budapest’s main opera house is a lavish neo-Renaissance confection with an interior so ornate that it could only have been built at the height of the wealthy Austro-Hungarian Empire. The opera house was designed by the Hungarian architect Mikós Ybl, while the Baroque ornamentation, sweeping marble staircases, the frescoed ceilings, vast chandeliers, rich velvets and gilded tiers of seats in the auditorium were mainly contributed by Károly Lotz and Bertalan Székely. It opened with great fanfare on September 27, 1884, in the presence of the Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph I and in time for the Millennium celebrations of 1896.

Gustave Mahler was director at the opera house between 1887-1891 and its reputation as one the world’s leading cultural houses was cemented. After decades of riding high on the international stage, the proud opera house fell into disrepair under the Communist regime in the 1970s.

Rising 140 m (460 ft) over the western flank of the River Danube, Gellért Hill is riddled with underground cave complexes and around 130 hot springs, which feed Budapest’s famous spa baths. Formed in karstic limestone, the springs have therapeutic properties and provide 70 million liters (18.5 million gallons) of hot, calcium-rich water – temperature ranges between 70°F (21°C) and 168°F (76°C) – daily to power the seven major spa complexes in the city.

Of these, the elegant, Art Nouveau-cum-Secessionist-style Gellért Thermal Bath and Spa opened in 1918; behind its undulating exterior is a confection of magical, turquoise-and-gold, mosaic-ed saunas, steam rooms and colonnaded indoor and outdoor pools. As well as a series of plunge pools and mineral baths of differing temperatures, there’s a wave pool on the roof and a panoramic terrace for sunbathing and al fresco lunching in summer.

Castle Hill is Budapest's most spectacular - and most visited - district. In one small area you have most of the city's big-hitter attractions, including the Royal Palace with its museums and library, the Matthias Church, the Fisherman's Bastion and several spectacular statues. The views over the Danube to Pest are incomparable and worth the trip alone.

Castle Hill has been settled since the 13th century, and you can still feel the scale of the medieval in its steep twisting streets and little square. It's watched over by a magnificent golden turul - the mythical eagle that is featured in Hungarian mythology. As you come up by funicular, the turul is practically the first thing you see.

The Royal Palace also has its fair share of fantastical statues, including a fountain featuring the young King Matthias posing as a hunter. The palace contains the Budapest History Museum and the National Art Gallery as well as the National Library.

Located on the Buda side of the Szechenyi Chain Bridge, Clark Adam Square was named after the Scottish engineer responsible for both the bridge and the tunnel beneath Castle Hill.

A 10-foot (three-meter) sculpture sits near the bushes in the southern part of the square; shaped like an oblong concrete doughnut, this Zero Kilometre Stone is the point from which all distances from Budapest to various Hungarian destinations are measured. Miklos Borsos designed the monument in 1975 to replace a previous one that had been destroyed during World War II.