Budapest - City Sights

1. Hungarian National Museum

Housed in a Grecian-style edifice, the Hungarian National Museum was only the fourth such ethnographic museum in the world when it opened in 1847. Its stated task is to collect and preserve the historical relics of Hungary and the Hungarian people, to scientifically elaborate the material of the collections and to exhibit them to the public. Chronologically it encompasses all the periods from the emergence of man to the present day. It underwent a major refit, completed in 2003, which has resulted in two new subterranean levels, devoted to medieval and Roman sculptures. The centrepiece of the latter is a 3rd century mosaic floor from a villa at Balácpuszta in western Hungary. Also accessible from the foyer is a darkened room displaying Byzantine silk coronation robe of King Stephen (Hungary’s first King and founder of the Hungarian state), which is far too fragile to be exhibited in the Parliament building.

2. Parliament Building

Inspired in part, by the Gothic-revival style of the Palace of Westminster, with Renaissance and baroque flourishes, and completed in 1902, the Parliament Building (Országház) dominates the skyline on the Pest side of the Danube in the same way as Castle Hill dominates the Buda side. It is not only Budapest’s most finely decorated building, but also one of the largest Parliaments in Europe, sprawling for 268 metres along the embankment. It has two symmetrical wings that bristle with finials and statues of Hungarian rulers and is surmounted by a 96 metre tall dome. Inside, there are 691 rooms, immense halls and more than 15 kilometres of corridors. Guards holding drawn sabres flank the Coronation Regalia, whose centrepiece, St. Stephen’s Crown, has symbolized Hungarian statehood since Stephen’s coronation in 1000 AD. Group excursions take place when Parliament is not in session, usually taking in the chamber of the former upper house (you can actually sit on the members’ benches).

3. St Stephen's Basilica

St Stephen’s Basilica (which stands on the square of the same name) is Budapest's largest church, holding more than 8000 worshippers. Work on it began in 1845 and wasn’t completed until 1906. Indeed the fact that the church exists at all is something of a miracle when you consider that the vast dome collapsed half way through construction. The building also had to be extensively reconstructed after allied bombing raids during World War II. The interior is somewhat gloomy, but very beautiful, lavishly decorated carvings, frescoes, chapels, variegated marble, gilded stucco and bronze mouldings. Adding a touch of the macabre, the Szent jobb kápolna (chapel of the Sacred Right) contains the gnarled, mummified hand of St Stephen, Hungary’s holiest relic. In a rather surreal exercise, you can pay a small fee for one of the resident attendants to flick a switch, lighting up the small glass case containing the hand.If this isn’t your idea of fun, take the lift instead to the Panorama Tower. Besides offering a grand view over Pest, it also allows you to see the framework of girders and ladders inside the cupola. The paved piazza, full of cafes just outside the Basilica also makes an excellent stopping-off point.

4. City Park

If you’d like to enjoy some peace and greenery, head for the lovely City Park (Városliget), the city’s main meeting place, where families and couples stroll at weekends in the fine weather. Known to locals as the Városliget, the park was created in 1896 to celebrate the first thousand years of Hungary’s existence. It features a wealth of amenities, including a boating lake (which becomes a skating rink in the winter) and a zoo. But its most striking feature is Vajdahunyad Castle, a fairytale-like folly that catalogues in stone the various architectural styles that have predominated through Hungarian history. It incorporates two Transylvanian castles and a replica of the chapel at Jak, enclosing a Renaissance courtyard.

5. Baroque Market Hall

At the south end of the Vaci Utca – the main tourist street on the Pest side of the river – lies the glorious Baroque Market Hall, built in 1896. This grand structure originally incorporated an indoor canal by which goods were delivered to the market's traders. Although the canal is long gone, the beautifully restored Zsolnay tiled roof and the immaculately laid out market stalls create a striking impression of vivid colours and intoxicating smells. The first floor holds fruit, vegetables, meats and fishmongers; upstairs are the crafts and textile stalls. One of the most popular mementoes for tourists is a carved "magic box": a painted wood jewellery box with moving slots that hide keys and mirrors. The craftspeople will carve a name on it on the spot.As with many of Europe's great market halls, if you plan to visit, do so early in the morning. Saturday in particular, is the best time to see this impressive market in full swing.

6. Great Synagogue

Completed in 1859 from a Lajos Förster design, the Great Synagogue, said to be the largest functioning synagogue in Europe. It features two impressive 'Moorish' style domes that make it one of the most immediately recognisable landmarks in Pest. The detailed façade of the building is decorated with brickwork in the heraldic colours of the city: blue, yellow and red.Hungary was Germany’s ally during World War II. Jews were persecuted, but Hungary defied the Nazis and refused to deport them for as long as possible. This ended in the spring of 1944, when nearly a half a million Jews were sent to the death camps. The courtyard to the rear houses the Synagogue's garden of remembrance. Here, Imre Varga's poignant weeping willow stands as a memorial to the Holocaust. As well as the names of Jewish families who were murdered, an inscription simply reads 'Whose agony is greater than mine'. Adjoining the main building there is also the Heroes Temple, which seats 250 people and serves as a memorial to Hungarian Jews who gave their lives during World War I. Though it is well worth a visit, do bear in mind that synagogue is not open to the public at all times due to security concerns.

7. Gellért Baths

Relics of the Ottoman conquest of Hungary in the16th and 17th centuries, the city’s Turkish Baths are perhaps its most popular attractions.
The water that feeds them is supplied by more than 100 thermal springs. Some were drilled, but others bubble up naturally from the fault line running near the Danube that separates the plains of Pest and the hills of Buda.
For the most characteristic Turkish Bath experience, try the Gellért Baths (part of the hotel of the same name), built 100 years ago at the base of Castle Hill and adorned with stained glass and tile flourishes throughout. There are men's and women's sections, each with baths of different temperatures. In the centre is a mixed-gender area of several pools where men and women are required to wear bathing caps. Once you have locked up your valuables, you will almost certainly find that you require additional small sums for other services. Locals seem to cart around plastic bags and watch them even while they are submerged or being steamed or pummeled. Nudity (single sex) is common but not required, and you will need a swimsuit for the large pool, open to both men and women. Take your own towel to avoid a large deposit to rent one. A strict traffic pattern is enforced: you will reap much scorn from the other bathers and the attendants if you don’t swim around the outer edge of the pool in a counterclockwise direction. You can also add a 15-minute massage to your routine.
Alternatively, the Széchenyi Thermal Baths, in City Park, are cheaper, mostly open air, and set in palatial ochre buildings inside which lurks a labyrinth of pools, saunas and steam baths ...you may even have a wet game of chess. Take swimsuit and towel, and don't be fazed by the baffling system of locker attendants and timed tickets.

8. State Opera House

Regarded as one of the most important historical buildings in Hungary, the State Opera House was completed in 1884, when Budapest was at the centre of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in its ascendancy. The neo-Renaissance façade of the building is decorated with statues of 16 of the world's greatest composers, including Monteverdi, Mozart, Beethoven, Verdi, Bizet and Tchaikovsky. There are also representations of the muses of opera, together with sculptures of Franz Liszt and Ferenc Erkel (the composer of the Hungarian national anthem and first director of the Opera House.) The interior of the building is equally lavish. The main auditorium, which seats over 1200 people, features a breathtaking, frescoed ceiling depicting “Olympus, home of the Gods.”
Less monumental, but equally intriguing is the smoking corridor – wood panelled, with shell-shaped, inlaid brass ashtrays and mirrors at either end. Though no longer used, legend has it that this space would become so choked with cigarette fumes between acts that it could provide cover for lovers' assignations.

9. House of Terror

In spite of its somewhat lurid name, House of Terror is actually a museum dedicated to chronicling, in sober fashion, the two regimes that dominated Hungary in the 20th century: the Nazis and the Communists. It occupies an elegant town house at 60 Andrassy St., considered Budapest's Champs-Elysées. This building was the headquarters of Hungary's Nazi party in 1944 and '45 and then that of the Communist secret police after World War II. It is said that hundreds of people died in torture chambers in the basement.
The museum’s opening, in February 2002, was not without controversy. Hungarian Jews believed that the Nazi terror was underemphasized. In particular, they objected to the fact that the regime of the home-grown, fascist Arrow Cross party – faithful in politics and brutality to the German Nazis – receives only the most cursory attention, while that of the Communists is subject to triumphal expansive scrutiny.
Nonetheless, the museum won a special commendation in this year's European Museum Forum awards. Its displays are immensely and technologically: sinister spotlighting is everywhere; the sound of a tap dripping plays endlessly in an empty cell; a Soviet tank rears above you at the entrance, mounted on a great, shiny, black plinth.

10. Castle Hill

A mile long plateau, its sides thickly planted with trees, Castle Hill (Várhegy) dominates Budapest. You can take any number of city buses or winding stone steps to the top, but the Siklo funicular railway is the most fun. Its cars are enclosed and tiered, so everyone has a view on the ascent. At the top you’ll be able to wander around the ancient cobbled streets of the Castle District. The streets still follow their medieval courses, with the Gothic arches and stone carvings half-concealed in the courtyards and passages of 18th century Baroque houses, their facades embellished with fancy iron grillworks. Here you’ll find the Buda Castle complex (which houses the National Gallery, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the History Museum), Matthias Church and the turreted vantage point of Fisherman's Bastion. Though originally built in the 13th century, Buda Castle is a post-war reconstruction of structure as it existed in the 18th century under the Hapsburgs, while the church and the bastion are 19th century neo-Gothic confections. If you’re seeking refreshments at any point in your sightseeing, try the warm, flaky pastry and rich, milky tejeskave (coffee with milk) at the 168 year old Ruszwurm cafe.

Text written by David Cunningham, author of CloudWorld and CloudWorld At War