Explore Hungary
Budapest â Part 1 >
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Transdanubia â Part 1 >
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The Great Plain >
Budapest â Part 1
The importance of BUDAPEST to Hungary is difficult to overestimate. More than two million people live in the capital â one fifth of the population â and everything converges here: roads and rail lines; air travel; industry, commerce and culture; opportunities, wealth and power. Like Paris, the city has a history of revolutions â in 1849, 1918 and 1956 â buildings, parks and avenues on a monumental scale, and a reputation for hedonism, style and parochial pride. In short, Budapest is a city worthy of comparison with other great European capitals.
Surveying Budapest from the embankments or the bastions of VĂĄrhegy (Castle Hill), itâs easy to see why the city was dubbed the âPearl of the Danubeâ. Its grand buildings and sweeping bridges look magnificent, especially when floodlit or illuminated by the barrage of fireworks that explode above the Danube every August 20, St Stephenâs Day. The eclectic inner-city and radial boulevards combine brash commercialism with a fin-de-siĂšcle sophistication, while a distinctively Magyar character is highlighted by the sounds and appearance of the Hungarian language at every turn.
Since the end of Communism, Budapest has experienced a new surge of dynamism. Luxury hotels and malls, restaurants, bars and clubs have all proliferated â as have crime and social inequalities. Though many Hungarians fear the erosion of their culture by foreign influences, others see a new golden age for Budapest, as the foremost world-city of Mitteleuropa.
The River Danube â which is never blue â determines basic orientation, with Buda on the hilly west bank and Pest covering the plain across the river. More precisely, Budapest is divided into 23 districts (kerĂŒlet), designated on maps and street signs by Roman numerals; many quarters also have a historic name. Pest is where youâre likely to spend most of your time, enjoying the streetlife, bars and shops within the BelvĂĄros (Inner City), and museums and monuments in the surrounding LipĂłtvĂĄros (likewise part of the V district), TerĂ©zvĂĄros (VI), ErzsĂ©betvĂĄros (VII), JĂłzsefvĂĄros (VIII) and FerencvĂĄros (IX), demarcated by two semicircular boulevards â the KiskörĂșt (Small Boulevard) and the NagykörĂșt (Great Boulevard) â and radial avenues such as AndrĂĄssy Ășt. Across the river in Buda, the focus of attention is the I district, comprising VĂĄrhegy and the VĂzivĂĄros (Watertown); the XI, XII, II and III districts are worth visiting for GellĂ©rt-hegy, the Buda Hills, Ăbuda and RĂłmaifĂŒrdĆ.
Highlights >
Some history >
Arrival and information >
City transport >
Accommodation >
Pest >
Vörösmarty tér >
VĂĄci utca >
Szervita tér to Ferenciek tere >
Along the embankment >
Deåk tér and Erzsébet tér >
LipĂłtvĂĄros and beyond >
Roosevelt tér >
St Stephenâs Basilica and Bajcsy-Zsilinszky Ășt >
Szabadsåg tér >
The BedĆ House and Post Office Savings Bank >
From the Glass House to Vértanuk tér >
Kossuth tér >
Further out >
Terézvåros >
HĆsök tere and around >
The VĂĄrosliget >
Erzsébetvåros >
JĂłzsefvĂĄros >
FerencvĂĄros >
Highlights
Hungarian Railway History Park The chance to ride and even drive a steam train is a big draw for all ages.
Zoo The Art Nouveau animal houses and the chance to feed the camels and giraffes make this a very special zoo.
Jewish quarter Explore the atmospheric neighbourhood behind the DohĂĄny utca Synagogue, the focal point of Budapestâs Jewish community.
VĂĄrhegy Laden with bastions, mansions and a huge palace, Castle Hill preserves many medieval features, and a Cold War nuclear bunker.
Turkish baths Experience unrivalled atmosphere and luxury in an original Ottoman bathhouse.
Coffee shops This venerable Central European institution is alive and well in the streets of Pest.
Sziget Festival Frenetic open-air rock and pop festival held in August.
Folk music The swirling tunes of Hungarian folk music are brought to life in the cityâs folk clubs.
Music Academy A magnificent showcase for some of the best classical music in the country.
< Back to Budapest â Part 1
Some history
Though Budapest has formally existed only since 1873 â when the twin cities of Buda and Pest were united in a single municipality, together with the smaller Ăbuda â the history of settlement here goes back as far as the second millennium BC. During the first Age of Migrations, the area was settled by waves of peoples, notably Scythians from the Caucasus and Celts from what is now France.
During the first century BC, the Celtic Eravisci tribe was absorbed into Pannonia, a vast province of the Roman Empire. This was subsequently divided into two regions, one of which, Pannonia Inferior, was governed from the garrison town of Aquincum on the west bank of the Danube; ruins of a camp, villas, baths and an amphitheatre can still be seen today.
The Romans withdrew in the fifth century AD to be succeeded by the Huns. Germanic tribes, Lombards, Avars and Slavs all followed each other during the second Age of Migrations, until the arrival of the Magyars in about 896. According to the medieval chronicler, Anonymous, while other tribes spread out across the Carpathian basin, the clan of ĂrpĂĄd settled on Csepel-sziget (Csepel Island), and it was ĂrpĂĄdâs brother, Buda, who purportedly gave his name to the west bank of the new settlement. It was under the ĂrpĂĄd dynasty that Hungary became a Christian state, ruled first from Esztergom and later from SzĂ©kesfehĂ©rvĂĄr.
The development of Buda and Pest did not begin in earnest until the twelfth century, and was largely thanks to French, Walloon and German settlers who worked and traded here under royal protection. Both towns were devastated by the Mongols in 1241 and subsequently rebuilt by colonists from Germany, who named Buda âOfenâ, after its numerous limekilns. (The name Pest, which is of Slav origin, also means âovenâ.) During the fourteenth century, the Angevin kings from France established Buda as a royal seat, building a succession of palaces on VĂĄrhegy. It reached its apogee in Renaissance times under the reign of âGood Kingâ MĂĄtyĂĄs (1458â90) and his Italian-born wife, Queen Beatrice, with a golden age of prosperity and a flourishing of the arts.
Hungaryâs catastrophic defeat at MohĂĄcs in 1526 paved the way for the Turkish occupation of Buda and Pest, which lasted 160 years until a pan-European army besieged Buda Castle for six weeks, finally recapturing it at the twelfth attempt. Under Habsburg rule, with control exerted from Vienna or Bratislava, recovery was followed by a period of intensive growth during the second half of the eighteenth century. In the first decades of the following century, Pest became the centre of the Reform movement led by Count SzĂ©chenyi, whose vision of progress was embodied in the construction of the Chain Bridge (LĂĄnchĂd), the first permanent link between Buda and Pest, which had hitherto relied on pontoon bridges or barges.
When the Habsburg Empire was shaken by revolutions which broke out across Europe in March 1848, local reformists and radicals seized the moment. While Lajos Kossuth (1802â94) dominated Parliament, SĂĄndor PetĆfi (1823â49) and his fellow revolutionaries plotted the downfall of the Habsburgs in the CafĂ© Pilvax (which exists today in a sanitized restaurant form in central Pest), from where they mobilized crowds on the streets of Pest. After the War of Independence ended in defeat for the Hungarians, Habsburg repression was epitomized by the hilltop Citadella on GellĂ©rt-hegy, built to cow the citizenry with its guns.
Following the Compromise of 1867, which established the Dual Monarchy familiarly known to its subjects as the K & K (from the German for âEmperor and Kingâ), the twin cities underwent rapid expansion and formally merged. Pest was extensively remodelled, acquiring the NagykörĂșt (Great Boulevard) and AndrĂĄssy Ășt, the grand thoroughfare that runs from the BelvĂĄros to the VĂĄrosliget (City Park). Hungaryâs millennial anniversary celebrations in 1896 brought a fresh rush of construction, and HĆsök tere (Heroesâ Square) and Vajdahunyad Castle at the far end of AndrĂĄssy Ășt are just two examples of the monumental style that encapsulated the age. New suburbs were created to house the burgeoning population, which was by now predominantly Magyar, although there were still large German and Jewish communities. At the beginning of the twentieth century the cultural efflorescence in Budapest rivalled that of Vienna and its cafĂ© society that of Paris â a belle Ă©poque doomed by World War I.
In the aftermath of defeat, Budapest experienced the Soviet-ruled Republic of Councils under BĂ©la Kun, and occupation by the Romanian army. The status quo ante was restored by Admiral Horthy, self-appointed regent for the exiled Karl IV â the âAdmiral without a fleet, for the king without a kingdomâ â whose regency was characterized by gala balls and hunger marches, bombastic nationalism and anti-Semitism. Yet Horthy was a moderate compared to the Arrow Cross Fascists, whose power grew as World War II raged.
Anticipating Horthyâs defection from the Axis in 1944, Nazi Germany staged a coup, installing an Arrow Cross government, which enabled them to begin the massacre of the Jews of Budapest; they also blew up the Danube bridges as a way of hampering the advance of the Red Army. The seven-week-long siege of Budapest reduced VĂĄrhegy to rubble and severely damaged much of the rest of the city, making reconstruction the first priority for the postwar coalition government.
As the Communists gained ascendancy, the former Arrow Cross torture chambers filled up once again. A huge statue of the Soviet dictator (whose name was bestowed upon Budapestâs premier boulevard) symbolized the reign of terror carried out by MĂĄtyĂĄs RĂĄkosi, Hungaryâs âLittle Stalinâ. However, his liberally inclined successor, Imre Nagy, gave hope to the people, who refused to tolerate a comeback by the hardliners in 1956. In Budapest, peaceful protests turned into a citywide uprising literally overnight: men, women and children defying Soviet tanks on the streets.
After Soviet power had been bloodily restored, JĂĄnos KĂĄdĂĄr â initially reviled as a quisling â gradually normalized conditions, embarking on cautious reforms to create a âgoulash socialismâ that made Hungary the envy of its Warsaw Pact neighbours and the Westâs favourite Communist state during the late 1970s. A decade later, the regime saw the writing on the wall and anticipated Gorbachev by promising free elections, hoping to reap public gratitude. Instead â as Communism was toppled in Berlin and Prague â the party was simply voted out of power in Hungary.
While governments have come and gone since the historic election of 1990, Budapestâs administration has remained in the hands of Mayor GĂĄbor Demszky, who is on his fifth term in office at the time of writing. Despite allegations of corruption, he is widely acknowledged to have steered the city forwards without any major upsets, and secured state funding for a fourth metro line, running from Keleti Station in Pest to Ătele tĂ©r in Buda. Scheduled for completion in 2012 but already over time and budget, its construction seems likely to be the headstone of his career as mayor of one of the great cities of Europe.
< Back to Budapest â Part 1
Arrival and information
Other than the airport, all points of arrival are fairly central and most within walking distance or just a few stops by metro from downtown Pest. The cityâs three metro lines and three main roads meet at the major junction of DeĂĄk tĂ©r in Pest, making this the main transport hub of the city. Depending on when and where you arrive, itâs definitely worth considering either arranging somewhere to stay before leaving the terminal or station (there are reservati...