Things to do in Budapest

Culture · City Park (XIV) and Buda side (II)

The two ends of Budapest bathing culture: Széchenyi's grand yellow neo-baroque courtyard, and Lukács, where the locals actually go.

Local tip: Széchenyi is genuinely magnificent and genuinely full of visitors. Lukács, across the river, is where you find the plaques left by regulars over a century and a pool culture of serious daily swimmers. Buy a pass, not a ticket.

Nightlife · District VII, the old Jewish quarter

The dense inner district where the ruin-bar movement started, wrapped around the Dohány Street Synagogue.

Local tip: Szimpla Kert is the original and worth seeing once. The district is also the historic Jewish quarter with a serious set of synagogues, kosher bakeries and memorial sites that most visitors walk past on the way to a bar. Living here means accepting genuine night noise.

Landmark · District VI, Terézváros

The great nineteenth-century boulevard from the centre to Heroes' Square, with the Opera House halfway along and the first metro on the continent running beneath it.

Local tip: The M1 line under Andrássy opened in 1896 and is the oldest electrified underground railway in continental Europe — it still runs with tiny yellow carriages and low ceilings. Take it once as a piece of history rather than as transport.

Nature · District XI, Buda side

A rocky hill above the Danube with the best view of the city, the Liberty Statue on top and the Gellért baths at its foot.

Local tip: The obvious approach is the stairs from Gellért tér. The better one is the path from the south-west, through the Jubilee Park, which is shaded, gentler, and empty. Go at sunset and walk down into District XI for dinner.

Food · District VI

Small neighbourhood market halls where Budapest actually shops, a few minutes from Andrássy.

Local tip: The Great Market Hall at Fővám tér is the famous one and is now largely paprika souvenirs upstairs. Hunyadi tér is what the Great Market Hall used to be — produce, cheese, pickles and a butcher's counter with a queue of pensioners.

Culture · District XXII, southern outskirts

Every communist statue removed from Budapest's streets after 1989, collected into a field on the edge of the city instead of being destroyed.

Local tip: Hungary did something unusual with its monuments: rather than smashing them, it moved them to a deliberately bleak open-air park and left them standing in rows. It is a forty-minute trip from the centre and almost nobody makes it, which is exactly why it is the most affecting historical site in the city.