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The capital of Hungary straddles a curve of the Danube River where Transdanubia meets the Great Plain. More romantic than Warsaw, more cosmopolitan than Prague, Budapest is home to one-fifth of Hungary's population.
Strictly speaking, the story of Budapest only begins in 1873 when hilly, residential Buda merged with flat, industrial Pest to form what was at first called Pest-Buda. But Budapest is much older than that: the Romans built the town of Aquincum here, and layer upon layer of history blankets Buda's Castle District.
Orientation
Most visitors arrive at one of the three main train stations: Keleti and Nyugati stations are in Pest, and Deli is on the Buda side. All are on metro lines which converge at Deak ter in the centre of town.
Pest is very much the bustling heart of the city, while Buda, on the west bank, is where you'll find the historic Castle District and quiet Buda Hills.
Budapest is divided into 22 kerulet (or districts), each with a Roman numeral, and which often precedes the street name in written addresses.
THINGS TO SEE AND DO
Pest
The most attractive boulevard in Budapest is leafy Andrassy ut, which stretches north-east from Bajscy-Zsilinsky ut out to City Park. The neo-Renaissance State Opera House at No 22 has tours at 3 and 4 pm daily which are worth taking if you can't catch a performance (l000Ft, students 450Ft).
The 96m-high neo-Renaissance dome of St Stephen's Basilica (1906) west of here looms over Bajcsy-Zsilinsky ut. The mummified right hand - the so-called Holy Right or Holy Dexter - of St Stephen is kept in the chapel at the rear of the church.
Heading north, stately Szabadsag ter is a large square lined with impressive buildings, including the Art Nouveau National Bank building (1900) and the Hungarian Television Building (1906), formerly the Budapest Stock Exchange.
The incredible neo-Gothic Parliament (1904) nearby on Kossuth Lajos ter runs tours in English but only when Parliament isn't sitting.
The twin-towered Great Synagogue (1859) at VII Dohany utca 2-8, the largest functioning synagogue in Europe, contains the Jewish Museum (open 10 am to 5 pm Monday to Thursday, to 3 pm Friday and to 2 pm Sunday; 600/300Ft).
The National Museum, VIII Muzeum korut 14-16, houses Hungary's main collection of historical relics in a neoclassical building (1847). It's open 10 am to 6 pm (5 pm in winter) Tuesday to Sunday; admission is 400/150Ft.
One of Budapest's most famous monuments is the dramatic Heroes' Square (Hosok tere). To get there, take the yellow metro line (Ml) north-east to Hosok tere. The metro line, the oldest underground railway in Europe, was completed the same year as the square. On the south-east side of the square is the Mucsarnok, an exhibition hall built in 1896 and now used for cutting edge art exhibits. On the other side is the Museum of Fine Arts (1906), housing Hungary's richest collection of foreign art. City Park extends to the west of the square.
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