Note that I planned, wrote, and recorded several Budapest tours on VoiceMap. The app uses your location to play audio automatically at the right time and place – you can put your phone away and roam the city with me, so to say. My tours: City Center, Jewish Quarter, Andrássy Avenue.
Often called "Budapest's Champs-Élysées," Andrássy Avenue is a 2.3 kilometer (1.4 mile) Unesco World Heritage boulevard that connects the city center with Heroes' Square and the City Park. Andrássy is lined with broad sidewalks, landmark buildings, and Renaissance Revival palazzos.
To make sense of Andrássy Avenue, one needs to go back to the 1867 creation of Austria-Hungary. Together with Vienna, Budapest became the shared capital of a large empire and the city ballooned from a small, provincial town into a worldly metropolis within a few decades. From a population of 125,000 in 1850, Budapest grew into one of the biggest cities in Europe by 1900, approaching a million people, most of whom lived here on the Pest side.
With money and political power came the desire for monumental representation: massive public buildings and open plazas emerged to parade Hungary’s newfound prestige. Down went the one and two-story simple houses – vestiges of a modest past many were eager to forget – and up rose the towering ministries and court buildings, immense bank headquarters, and gleaming hospitals, museums, universities, and national monuments (not unlike Baron Haussmann's renovation of Paris a decade earlier).
The urban fabric of the city also improved. Taking cues from Paris and Vienna's Ringstraße, spacious ring roads, sweeping boulevards, and tree-lined avenues were built in the 1880s to improve connectedness and mobility, to make space for the rising population, and to express the city’s ambitions. Most prominent of these was Andrássy Avenue. This frenzy of construction activity was also fueled by a desire among the Hungarian political elites to develop Budapest into a city that could rival Vienna.
To appreciate Andrássy Avenue to the fullest, walk all the way from the city center to Heroes' Square, a thirty-minute stroll at a leisurely pace. The luxury apartment buildings that line Andrássy were commissioned by businesspeople, often Jewish, who were motivated by a desire for upward mobility and social acceptance by the aristocracy, which also owned property here. This was the period in the late 19th century when the Revival Style dominated architecture, which is why many of these buildings look like Medici-type palazzos that one would find in 15th-century Florence and Rome.
The owner and his family typically lived in the first-floor apartment of these three or four-story buildings. This was the noble floor, the piano nobile, with the highest ceiling and with six or eight, sometimes ten-bedrooms plus a balcony. The rest of the building was usually rented out to tenants.
A good example is the Saxlehner Palace, the first building at the entry point of Andrássy Avenue on the right-hand side. While the whole facade is clad in polished limestone, the piano nobile draws attention to itself with alternating peaked and rounded window pediments, atop which rest bronze copies of Michelangelo's Dawn and Dusk from the Medici Chapel. Architect Győző Czigler's building was commissioned by the originally German Saxlehner family, wealthy industrialists in charge of a thriving mineral water company.
The first section of Andrássy, up to Oktogon, comprises high-end shopping. It is here that one can quickly shell out a fortune on Gucci coats and Louis Vuitton bags. Nubu and Aeron are local designer labels while Omorovicza deals in skincare (more shopping ideas: this way). A few streets over in Dessewffy utca is Hamerli, an upscale glove producer based in the western Hungarian city of Pécs, Hungary's hub of glove manufacturing. You might want to note Boutiq for later, an excellent cocktail bar in a side street off Andrássy.
What Meissen is to Germany and Sèvres to France is Herend to Hungary – the center for porcelain manufacturing. In the mid-18th century, porcelain started to replace traditional majolica and faience in Europe in an effort to imitate Chinese stoneware and its decorative patterns. Founded in 1825, Herend Porcelain initially specialized in replacements of Meissen and Sèvres for the Hungarian aristocracy before introducing its own line of dishware, tea and coffee sets, and vases.
Today, Herend Porcelain, which is based in western Hungary and employs more than 600 people, still hand-paints all products which are exported to countries around the world. The company sells the classic lines, named after famous customers, such as Queen Victoria, Alexander von Humboldt, and the Rothschild family. I am partial to the “Gödöllő” label – bands of red-brick and white adorned with plant motifs (it was a favorite of King Franz Joseph). Even if you don’t feel like shelling out €5,000, it is possible to find small figurines and individual plates or bowls that go for €80 or so at their Andrássy store.
Designed by architect Miklós Ybl, a jewel of Andrássy is the Hungarian State Opera. The building's central axis brings to mind Venetian renaissance architecture as well as Gottfried Semper's opera house in Dresden. Franz Liszt and Ferenc Erkel, carved in stone, flank the entrance portico, while other famous composers such as Palestrina, Monteverdi, and Beethoven stand on the balustrade up top. An example of the friendly competition between Vienna and Budapest at the time: imperial authorities specified that the size of the Budapest Opera had to be smaller than the Viennese.
The Opera provides an hour-long guided tour through the inside, rich with marble, gold, and mahogany. It culminates in the grand stair hall, made for savoring spectacles and seeing and being seen.
Across from the opera house stands the less conspicuous but comparably impressive Drechsler Palace, designed by Ödön Lechner, who later became Hungary's pioneering Art Nouveau architect (the building is home to a W Hotel currently).
Andrássy Avenue was named after Gyula Andrássy (1823-1890), Hungary's Prime Minister and later an important Foreign Minister of Austria-Hungary. The avenue's moniker bears witness to Budapest’s tumultuous history: it has been renamed a total of five times in the last century. Leading up to WWII, parts of it were named after Hitler and Mussolini and it went by "Stalin Avenue" and the "People’s Republic Avenue" during the Communist era (1948-1989). Since 1990, it has been back to Andrássy. Let's see how long that will last.
For coffee, I often go to cafe on the ground floor of the Robert Capa Photography Center, home to a wonderful permanent exhibition of Endre Friedmann, better known as Robert Capa (1913-1954), the famous photojournalist and war photographer. Born in Budapest into a middle-class Jewish family, Capa flirted with the Communist party which landed him in prison; upon his release, the eighteen-year-old left Hungary in 1931, settling in Berlin, then Paris, and finally the U.S.
Once abroad, Capa created a new identity for himself, adopting what used to be his childhood nickname – Cápa – which translates to “shark,” given to him for his unusually large and broad mouth that resembled that of a shark. Capa first made a name for himself with his fearless reporting from the Spanish Civil War, bringing the war’s cruelties to the eyes of the world with expressive images. The Falling Soldier, showing the moment when a loyalist soldier is shot by a bullet, is still among the most recognized war photography.
Capa was killed in 1954 in northern Vietnam when he stepped on a landmine while reporting on the Indochina War, lending bitter poignancy to his personal mantra: “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you are not close enough.” The exhibition features 138 photos, as well as the 1947 radio interview, the only known recording of Capa’s voice that miraculously turned up at an ebay sale several years ago. Nagymező utca is something of a "photography district" since here lies also the Mai Mano House, a hub for high-profile international shows.
Several excellent restaurants and cafés cluster in the side streets of Andrássy along and near Nagymező utca. Kiskovász is a family-run new-wave bakery. Menza puts out delicious traditional Hungarian fare. If there's a wait, try the fashionable Fleischer around the corner. Ristorante Krizia is a longstanding restaurant specializing in northern Italian fare. Two Michelin-starred Stand is also nearby. Csirke Csibész is an iconic haunt for late-night chicken sandwiches. Zsivágó is a charming café with plenty of cozy nooks and crannies, not unlike Kiadó Kocsma on the opposite side of Andrássy. For low-priced Roman style pizza, I usually head to Pizzica. Terézváros also features two of the cities lively wine bars, Kadarka and Bortodoor.
The Liszt Academy is the center for classical music in Budapest. Apart from its deep concert calendar, the building itself is noteworthy, layered with astonishing Art Nouveau details especially the grand auditorium. They offer weekly guided tours.
If you don't mind a small detour from Andrássy, amble over to the Nyugati Railway Terminal. After the 1851 opening of London’s Crystal Palace, exposed cast iron became all the rage across Europe. Light and skeletal iron symbolized modernity, so it was fitting that modernity’s greatest invention – the railway – would be housed in such structures. So emerged in Budapest in 1877, after just twelve months of work, the spectacular new building of the Nyugati railway terminal along the Grand Boulevard.
The sky-lighted roof and the delicate cast iron supports were designed and manufactured by Gustave Eiffel’s office in Paris. The passenger station is flanked by several pavilions which contained a ticket office, the waiting halls – for the royal couple a luxurious one, whose entrance is still visible today – a post office, a luggage room, and a restaurant.
The striking restaurant building became home to a McDonald’s in 1990, the company’s second location in post-Communist Budapest. The high-ceilinged, historic interior was an unusual choice for a chain restaurant, but the Nyugati's McDonald’s has remained popular ever since and is regarded as one of the company’s nicest locations globally. Across the train station is Pinczi, a legendary bastion of meat serving tender roasted sausages and crunchy pork belly cuts.
Beyond the Grand Boulevard, the side streets of Andrássy look and feel a little different. The unkempt condition of the otherwise beautiful housing stock shows long decades of neglect that started during the Communist period in the 1950s when most of Budapest's apartments were nationalized with the stroke of a pen and left to decay (these buildings are a good approximation of what much of Budapest looked like in the 1990s). Not much commerce exists in these still mainly working-class neighborhoods, but I would like to draw your attention to the lovely Hunyadi Market, one of the five grand indoor markets that opened in Budapest at the end of the 19th century.
While the inside is being renovated, the vendors have moved into the containers outside the market. I often come here for pickled veggies (“savanyúság” in Hungarian which just means “sour stuff”). The savanyúság options are endless: sauerkraut of course, but there’s all sorts of peppers, beets, onions, baby corn, even cauliflower. Everything in both sweet and spicy. The vendors are farmers from Vecsés who have been here for several generations and who are completely oblivious to the fact that fermented foods are fashionable these days. Cheap and delicious. I can also recommend the market's lángos vendor, also operating out of a container currently. There's a specialty coffee shop across the park: Cube.
Back on Andrássy, the House of Terror, one of the city's most visited museums, highlights the cruelty and sheer ignorance of the Communist regime in Hungary, especially during its extremist Stalinist period in the 1950s.
The Liszt Museum has a small exhibition inside the apartment where Franz Liszt lived toward the end of his life in the 1880s. Liszt spent time in Budapest mostly after the 1875 founding of the Royal Academy of Music, whose first President and piano teacher he was. Back then the academy was up here and Liszt lived in an apartment inside the building (the academy moved to its current location on Liszt Ferenc tér in 1907). Original furniture, musical scores, several pianos, and Liszt portraits comprise the collection.
The piano lessons took place in Liszt’s living room, which opened directly onto the academy’s auditorium. Students remembered Liszt as being strict and direct with his feedback. He didn’t give technical advice and instead of mechanical virtuosity encouraged students to understand the intent and logic of the compositions and try to express them in their own personal way. Note that there are regular classical music concerts in this building – known as the “old academy” – as well as in the new academy on Liszt Ferenc tér.
The rest of this block is dedicated to the University of Fine Arts whose exhibition hall often presents student artworks (free entry). Observe the decorative details on the facade: Just above the ground floor, for example, on the sgraffito details, one can spot medallions of Michelangelo, Leonardo, and Dürer. For cheap drinks and good vibes, head to Pótkulcs, a positively grungy bar with a hidden outdoor terrace and local Kőbányai beer from the draft.
The next section of Andrássy is Kodály körönd, a beautiful, spacious roundabout lined with a park and impressive palazzos. They too date from Budapest’s golden period in the late 19th century. Back then, MÁV, the Hungarian National Railway, was one of the biggest companies in Austria-Hungary and it commissioned many buildings along Andrássy to provide comfortable apartments for its senior executives and to invest its capital in real estate. Here, on Kodály körönd, MÁV owned two buildings, those on the left and the right as you approach the square.
The four bronze statues in the park depict historic figures. As with most things in Hungary during the 20th century, there is a strange story to these statues. Two of the original statues that stood here – István Bocskay and Gábor Bethlen – were taken away in 1950 by the Communist regime in order to have them replace the Habsburg statues that had stood on Heroes’ Square. The Communists removed the Habsburg statues because they detested all royalty and aristocracy, good or bad.
This was also why they got rid of the third original statue of Count János Pálffy. The only original still here is that of Miklós Zrínyi, the great general who defeated the Ottoman army of Suleiman the Magnificent in 1566 in Szigetvár, hence the corpse lying at his feet.
There is a dark side to this square: in 1938, when Hungary was allied with Nazi Germany, the square was renamed to Adolf Hitler Square. It kept that name until the end of the war in 1945. Today, Kodály körönd is named after the composer Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967), who for four decades lived in an apartment facing the square. Kodály famously recorded folk songs with Bartók in the Hungarian countryside and he is also known for his folk opera, Háry János, a Missa Brevis, and his passionate teaching activity.
Kodály's four-bedroom apartment functions as a small museum currently. It has largely retained its layout and furnishings, complete with original concert posters and personal items. The museum requires advance notice at +36 1 352 7106 or [email protected] before a visit (same day is usually fine).
In the cooler months, I get my mulled wine at Matinee before I visit the Ráth György-villa. While the Museum of Applied Arts is closed for renovation, it is here that I satisfy my cravings for Art Nouveau objects. György Ráth (1823-1905) was the museum’s first director and his old Budapest residence functions as a replacement-museum of sorts. The thematic rooms show off the local Art Nouveau variants with works by Émile Gallé, Louis Majorelle, Louis Comfort Tiffany, the Arts and Crafts movement, and the Wiener Werkstätte. Inspired by all of the above, Hungary concocted its own version of Art Nouveau which often incorporated elements of folk art.
I’m especially fond of the dining set that the Nabis and Art Nouveau painter József Rippl-Rónai designed for the Andrássy family; Zsolnay’s deceptively brilliant glazed ceramics; Jakab Rapoport’s elegant metalworks; and Géza Maróti’s bulky, idiosyncratic furniture.
There's also the adorable Postal Museum, where six spacious rooms contain items such as postal delivery vehicles, telegraphs, telephone exchanges, mail boxes, money bags, wall-mounted telephones, and postcards. King Franz Joseph’s first telephone is also here (he was wary of new technology and didn’t use it much). The museum inhabits an Art Nouveau building designed by the Viennese architect Oskar Marmorek, with stained glass windows supplied by the renowned Budapest atelier of Miksa Róth.
The last section of Andrássy, from Kodály Körönd to Heroes' Square, is dotted with handsome villas. The wealthy families who once lived here are long gone, having been persecuted by both the local Nazi and the subsequent Communist regimes. After the nationalizations, many buildings became embassies. For example, the embassies of Russia, Turkey, South Korea, Qatar, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Albania are located here. Other villas operate as art galleries or high-end boutique hotels currently.
The beginnings of fine arts education in Hungary go back to an amazingly idiosyncratic place: the mysterious Epreskert. This area off Andrássy Avenue, near Heroes’ Square, was largely undeveloped until the 1880s, Epreskert itself being a mulberry orchard. Amid the untamed nature, the academy built three large studios for its star professors, such as Gyula Benczúr, who was lured back to Hungary in 1883 to teach painting (he had been on staff at Munich’s Academy of Fine Arts).
Epreskert became a free-spirited, romantic wonderland sprinkled with fake ruins and classical sculpture. Its masquerade parties were notorious city-wide in the 1890s and counted among the few events in Budapest where the aristocracy mingled outside its circles. Over the years, Epreskert has become a sculpture depot of sorts, containing artworks that the reigning political regimes deemed unwanted, which explains why a gorgeous marble statue of Habsburg Queen Sisi stands abandoned in the yard.
Despite a couple of new buildings, Epreskert has retained much of its original layout and native spirit. It is still an important training ground for students at the University of Fine Arts. Epreskert is open to the public only during exhibitions, which are regular, but you can glimpse much of it from the outside.
After London, Budapest was the second city in Europe to build a subway line. The M1 line was built to transport people from the city center to the City Park, where in 1896 Hungary celebrated its one thousandth “birthday” with the Hungarian Millennial Exhibition. It was a massive six-months event, similar to a World's Fair, and it needed good transportation options to and from the exhibition pavilions, hence the subway.
The line is still operational today and it has retained much of its original atmosphere. The subway cars are adorably undersized and the stations are located conveniently close to the ground level. Locals refer to it as the "kisföldalatti," meaning small underground.
Andrássy Avenue terminates at Heroes' Square, Hungary's national monument built around the turn of the 20th century. In the middle of the square rises a Corinthian victory column topped by the long-winged Archangel Gabriel, holding in his hands the Holy Crown of Hungary and the Cross. This victory column is surrounded by equestrian statues of ancient Hungarian chieftains. These were the leaders who led the Hungarian tribes in the 9th century AD into the Carpathian Basin where the Hungarian Kingdom was founded. One can find the name of each chieftain on the base of the statue. My first name, for example, Tas, comes from one of them.
Those two sets of curved colonnades in the back enclose bronze statues of Hungary's historic figures. I’m not going to go through all of them, but I will highlight two. The most notable person is King Stephen, on the very left, who was the first King of Hungary and who decided that Hungary will join the Christian nations of Europe in around the year 1000.
Stephen believed that the survival of Hungary in the heart of Europe could only be ensured if it aligned itself with the Papacy and found allies among the great Christian nations of Europe. This is why he requested the Pope’s blessing to his coronation and why he married the sister of the Holy Roman Emperor. Then he went about converting the pagan Hungarian population to Christianity with the help of missionaries from Western European Benedictine monks and laid the foundations of the state.
The other statue I'm partial to is that of the great Renaissance King, Matthias Corvinus, who appears on the right hand colonnade as the second person from the left. In the 15th century, Matthias built a wonderful Renaissance court in the Buda Castle. He brought famous artists, architects, poets, even cooks from Italy who spread the humanist values. Matthias’s library, the Bibliotheca Corviniana, was the envy of Europe. Unfortunately, during the Ottoman invasion of Hungary in the 16th and 17th centuries most of Matthias’s legacy was destroyed. Some of the remains can be seen in the Budapest History Museum in the Buda Castle.
How come no statues of the great Habsburg kings and queens of Hungary (Maria Theresa, for example)? As mentioned, the anti-royalist and nationalist Communist regime in the 1950s replaced the Habsburgs, who are patiently biding their time in a statue depot on the Budapest outskirts.
Heroes’ Square is flanked by two museum buildings. The gray building to the left, the bigger one, is the Museum of Fine Arts, the most important art museum in Hungary. It has an incredible collection of paintings by the likes of Raphael, Velazquez, Rubens, and Goya, making it one of the great old masters collections in Europe (here, my favorites). On the other side, that reddish building, is the Műcsarnok, which houses temporary exhibitions by local artists.
Behind Heroes' Square lies Budapest's City Park, home to a bunch of treasures. For example the panoramic ice skating rink during the winter months which functions as a lake for boating in the summer; the fairy-tale like Vajdahunyad Castle with the astonishing Museum of Agriculture inside it; Széchenyi, which is Budapest's biggest thermal baths; one of the oldest zoos in Europe; and two recently completed architecture eye candies: the House of Music, designed by Japanese starchitect Sou Fujimoto, and the swooping Museum of Ethnography by Marcel Ferencz. Both with a remarkable permanent collection.
If you are low on energy, take the charming Millennium Underground (M1) back to downtown. You will find a station where Andrássy Avenue meets Heroes’ Square and another one near Széchenyi Baths.
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