Things to Do in Hungary

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.

Sitting high on Castle Hill on the Buda side of the Danube River, Fisherman’s Bastion was built in 1905 as part of the ongoing celebrations of the thousand-years existence of the Hungarian state. It encompasses part of the original fortified castle walls and its terraces boast the best view points over the river and across to Pest. The bastion is a step away from several of Budapest’s big-hitting attractions, including the Royal Palace with its museums and library, Matthias Church and the Hungarian National Gallery.

Festooned with Neo-Romanesque lookout towers, equestrian statues, turrets and colonnades, the T-shaped bastion has two levels and wraps itself around Matthias Church. Architect Frigyes Schulek revamped the church and designed the bastion at the same time. The wide steps leading up to the bastion are scattered with neo-Gothic statuary and provide an impressive introduction to Castle Hill.

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.

Lake Balaton is the largest lake in Central Europe at 48 miles (77 km) by seven miles (11 km) at its widest. Lying in the Transdanubia region of landlocked Hungary, it is the summer playground for all Budapest, a great freshwater expanse in the foothills of the Bakony Mountains about an hour’s drive outside the city.

The north and south shores of Lake Balaton are entirely different in character; the southern side is well developed, with a series of modern resorts strung beadlike along the beaches, while the north is wilder and volcanic, with fewer resorts. Chief among these are Keszthely, home of the ornate Baroque Festetics Castle, and the historic spa town of Balatonfüred. The distinctive, twin-spired church at Tihany stands high on its rocky peninsula, surrounded by reed lands, and there are wineries scattered along the northern hills, some dating from the 14th century and many open for sampling the wares.

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.

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.

The Central Market Hall is the largest indoor market in Budapest, Hungary. The ornate building is more than 100 years old and has three stories filled with stalls. The roof is still original and is covered in colorful Zsolnay tiles. There are four other markets in Budapest that were built in the same style with similar roofs, and all five opened on February 15, 1897.

The market hall is frequently visited by tourists, though many locals shop here on a regular basis as well. There are stalls selling fruits and vegetables, Hungarian meats, fish, local cheeses, Hungarian herbs and spices, Hungarian wines and spirits, clothing, purses, accessories, and souvenirs. There are also a few restaurants where you can try local dishes such as lángos, which is yeast-based dough deep fried in oil and topped with different things like sour cream, cheese, and garlic. The Central Market Hall often holds special events featuring the cuisine of foreign countries.

Eger is the second largest city in northern Hungary and with a castle, thermal baths, historic buildings and great wine, it makes a perfect day or weekend trip from Budapest. Founded in the 10th century by St. Stephen, the first Christian king of Hungary, the city was destroyed by the Mongols in the 13th century and then rebuilt around a new stone fortress in the 14th and 15th centuries. After being ruled by the Turks for almost a century, the city prospered once again as part of the Habsburg Empire during the 18th century. A remnant of Eger’s Turkish rule is the Turkish minaret, which can be climbed for panoramic views of the city.

Among Eger’s most popular sights are its castle, an imposing 19th century basilica, the town’s main square and an 18th century baroque minarite church. The town is also well known for its red and white wines and is the third most visited city in Hungary.

The colossal Vajdahunyad Castle sits next to the boating lake amid the greenery of City Park (Városliget) and displays a joyous clash of Hungarian architectural styles. It was designed by Ignác Alpár to be a gigantic folly for the Hungarian millennium celebrations in 1896, but it was such a hit with the citizens of Budapest that it was granted a reprieve and its makeshift construction was rebuilt in stone.

Running the gamut of Romanesque to Renaissance architecture, the palace is gaily encrusted with towers, turrets, Gothic flying buttresses, portcullises, bridges and courtyards, happily borrowing features from other castles around Hungary and there are scores of neo-classical statues scattered in the grounds. Today Budapest’s Agricultural Museum is housed among the marble stairs, ornate décor, stained glass and vast chandeliers of the palace interior.

Found among the rolling plains of Alföld in eastern Hungary, Hortobagy National Park is UNESCO World Heritage-listed for its unique puszta grasslands, marshes, meadows and Europe’s biggest salt plain lying close to the River Tisza. Covering 82,000 hectares, it is a landscape where time has stood still and ancient rural farming traditions are still practised.

Distinctive gray cattle with curly horns graze the grasslands along with hardy, long-horned, woolly racka sheep and hairy mangalica pigs, shepherded by farmers who were once largely nomadic. The local csikós – Hungarian cowboys – are known for their daredevil equestrian skills and regular riding displays are given at several stud farms in the park. Hortobagy is also a paradise for bird watchers; during fall, some 70,000 cranes break their migration in the park, where more than 340 species of bird have been spotted, including cormorants, herons and egrets.