Budapest

Budapest

Budapest was born from three separate cities in 1873. Buda, Pest and Obuda were unified by law on 17 November of that year, and the city that emerged from that union went on to become one of the most spectacular capitals in Europe, a place where imperial grandeur, thermal springs, café culture and the wide sweep of the Danube combine in a way that is entirely its own.

Budapest is built on the Danube, divided by it into two quite different halves. On the western, Buda side, limestone hills rise steeply from the riverbank and carry the medieval castle district, the old royal palace and the Matthias Church up to their summits, giving views across the entire city and far beyond. On the eastern, Pest side, the ground is flat and the architecture is grand: wide boulevards, ornate apartment blocks and some of the most impressive 19th-century public buildings in Europe line streets that were laid out with deliberate ambition in the decades after unification. The two halves are connected by eight bridges, of which the Chain Bridge, opened in 1849, is the oldest and most celebrated.

The city has been shaped by a remarkable sequence of powers. The Romans built a major settlement here, Aquincum, which became the capital of the province of Pannonia. The Ottomans occupied Buda for 145 years from 1541 and left behind a bathing culture that the Hungarians made entirely their own. The Habsburgs rebuilt and expanded the city in the 18th and 19th centuries with the grandeur that defines its appearance today. Budapest was devastated during the Second World War and again during the 1956 uprising, and the decades of reconstruction that followed have given it an additional layer of history that is still visible in its buildings.

The Chain Bridge, opened in 1849, was the first permanent bridge over the Danube in Budapest

The City

The Castle District and Buda Castle

The castle hill in Buda is one of the finest historic districts in Central Europe. The Royal Palace at its southern end was the seat of Hungarian kings from the 14th century, destroyed repeatedly by war and rebuilt each time, most recently after the Second World War. It now houses the Hungarian National Gallery and the Budapest History Museum. The medieval streets of the castle district to the north of the palace contain some of the best-preserved Gothic and Baroque architecture in Hungary, including the Matthias Church, where Hungarian kings were crowned for five centuries, and the Fisherman's Bastion, a terrace of neo-Romanesque towers built at the turn of the 20th century that offers one of the finest panoramic views of the Danube, the Parliament building and the Pest skyline.

The Parliament Building

The Hungarian Parliament building on the Pest bank of the Danube is one of the largest parliament buildings in the world and one of the most dramatic pieces of Gothic Revival architecture anywhere in Europe. Built between 1885 and 1904 and designed by Imre Steindl, it stretches for nearly 270 metres along the riverbank, its central dome flanked by two symmetrical wings and 96 towers. The interior is equally extraordinary: the main staircase, the domed hall and the principal chambers are decorated with Hungarian marble, gilded ceilings and Zsolnay tiles in a way that makes a guided tour genuinely worthwhile. The building can be visited by guided tour on most days.

The Great Synagogue

The Dohany Street Synagogue on the Pest side is the largest synagogue in Europe and the second largest in the world. Built in 1859 in a Moorish Revival style, it seats 3,000 people and contains a museum, a memorial garden and a cemetery within its grounds. The memorial garden includes a metal weeping willow tree designed by Imre Varga, each leaf inscribed with the name of a Hungarian Jewish victim of the Holocaust. It is one of the most moving memorials in any European city and should not be missed.

Andrassy Avenue and Heroes Square

Andrassy Avenue is Budapest's grandest boulevard, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that runs from the city centre out to Heroes Square and the City Park. Modelled in part on the Champs-Elysees, it is lined with neo-Renaissance palaces, embassies and the Hungarian State Opera House, designed by Miklos Ybl and opened in 1884, which is widely considered one of the finest opera houses in Europe. At the far end of Andrassy Avenue, Heroes Square is dominated by the Millennium Monument, a semicircular colonnade of statues of Hungarian kings and leaders built in 1896 to mark the thousandth anniversary of the Magyar settlement of the Carpathian Basin.

The Thermal Baths

Budapest sits above more than 100 natural thermal springs, a legacy of the geological fault line on which the city is built, and has been using them for bathing since Roman times. The Ottomans built several of the original bathhouses during their occupation in the 16th and 17th centuries, some of which are still in use today. The city's reputation as a spa capital is fully deserved: visiting a thermal bath is one of the experiences that Budapest does better than any other city in Europe.

The most celebrated is the Gellert Baths, built between 1912 and 1918 in the Art Nouveau style and attached to the Hotel Gellert on the Buda side of the Liberty Bridge. Its main pool, marble columns, Zsolnay ceramic tiles and stained glass ceiling are genuinely spectacular.

The Szechenyi Baths in the City Park are a good alternative and remain fully open. Built in 1913 in a neo-Baroque style, they are one of the largest bath complexes in Europe, with outdoor pools, indoor thermal pools and a full spa. The outdoor pools, steaming gently in cooler weather with groups of men playing chess on floating boards, are one of the defining images of Budapest. For something closer to the original Ottoman experience, the Rudas Baths on the Buda bank date from the 16th century and retain their original octagonal domed pool.

The Ruin Bars of the Jewish Quarter

Budapest's Jewish Quarter in the 7th district of Pest has been transformed since the early 2000s by a wave of "ruin bars" occupying the courtyards and shells of buildings that were damaged or abandoned after the war. Szimpla Kert, the original and most famous, opened in 2002 in a derelict factory and has since expanded into a sprawling complex of mismatched furniture, plants, bicycle parts and art. The ruin bar scene it inspired has given the Jewish Quarter a nightlife and creative culture that makes it one of the most distinctive urban districts in Central Europe. The area is also home to some of Budapest's finest restaurants, cafes and market halls.

The Great Market Hall

The Central Market Hall, built in 1897 and designed by Samu Pecz in a neo-Gothic style with a Zsolnay tile roof, is the largest indoor market in Budapest. The ground floor sells fresh produce, meat and fish. The upper gallery is stocked with Hungarian crafts, embroidery, paprika, salami and other food products, and contains a row of food stalls serving traditional Hungarian dishes. Even if you buy nothing, the building itself is worth the visit: it is one of the finest market halls in Europe, both in scale and in detail.

The Venice Simplon-Orient-Express Journey to Budapest

The Paris to Budapest route on the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express departs Paris Gare d'Austerlitz in the afternoon, travels overnight through France and Germany, and arrives in Vienna the following morning, where the train makes a brief stop before continuing to Budapest Keleti station in the early afternoon. Budapest Keleti is one of the great railway stations of Central Europe, its neo-Renaissance facade facing one of the main squares of Pest and its grand main hall a fitting setting for the arrival of the world's most celebrated train.

Budapest Practicalities

• Budapest Keleti is the main international railway station, in central Pest, and is the VSOE arrival point
• Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport is approximately 16km from the city centre
• UK citizens do not currently require a visa for Hungary. Always check the current position at gov.uk before travel
• The currency is the Hungarian Forint. Credit cards are widely accepted in hotels and restaurants but cash is useful in markets and smaller establishments
• Budapest has an excellent metro, tram and bus network. The metro line M1, opened in 1896, was the first underground railway on the European continent
• The castle district is on the Buda side and is most easily reached from the Pest bank by funicular from the Chain Bridge, by bus or on foot up the hill
• The best time to visit is spring (April to June) or autumn (September to October) for comfortable temperatures and the most attractive light on the Danube
• Hungarian food is genuinely excellent and Budapest has a thriving restaurant scene far beyond the tourist trail. Goulash, langos, chimney cake and the wines of the Tokaj and Eger regions are all worth seeking out