Hungary Travel Guide - Hungary Hotels - Hungary Travel Guide

Hungary is situated in Central Europe, sharing borders with the Slovak Republic, Ukraine, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Austria and Slovenia. There are several ranges of hills, chiefly in the north and west. The capital city of Budapest, situated on one of the most beautiful areas of the Danube, is made up of two parts – Buda and Pest. The former is the older, more graceful part, with cobbled streets and medieval buildings; the latter is the commercial centre. The capital is a lively city that has long been a haven for writers, artists and musicians. The Historical Museum of Budapest contains archaeological remains of the old city, and furnishings, glass and ceramics from the 15th century. On the Pest side is the Parliament and the Hungarian National Museum, containing remarkable treasures including the oldest skull yet found in Europe. Lake Balaton in the west is a popular holiday region, not least because of its sandy beaches and shallow waters. Local dishes include halászlé (fish soup) with pasta and goulash (gulyás) soup. Budapest has many nightclubs, bars and discos. During summer months the popular Lake Balaton resort has a lively nightlife.

Hungary does not regard itself as a Balkan or a Slavic country, and the Magyars who settled there from central Asia have always identified with western values. The country has survived the devastations of the Tartars, Turks, Habsburgs and Russians, retaining its unique language and culture. In Hungary admitting that one is a tourist is positive; people are individualistic, against homogenized Euroculture and will want to meet, talk and help one to enjoy their country.

Budapest

The capital city was originally two cities on each side of one of the most beautiful stretches of the Danube river – Buda, the older, more graceful part, with cobbled streets and medieval buildings, and Pest, the commercial centre. The ‘Pearl of the Danube’ is a lively city which has long been a haven for writers, artists and musicians.

BUDA: In Buda, Gellért Hill gives a wonderful view of the city, river and mountains; on the hill is the Citadella, a fort built after the unsuccessful 1848 uprising, and a number of thermal baths including the great Gellért Baths adjoining the hotel of that name. The Royal Palace, fully reconstructed after being bombed during World War II, houses the National Gallery, with collections of fine Gothic sculpture and modern Hungarian art, and the Historical Museum of Budapest, containing archaeological remains of the old city, and furnishings, glass and ceramics from the 15th century. Also on this side of the Danube is the rampart of Halászbástya (Fisherman’s Bastion), so called because it was the duty of the city’s fishermen to protect the northern side of the Palace during the Middle Ages, and the great Mátyás templon (church) with its multicoloured tiled roof.

PEST: On the Pest side are the Parliament; the Hungarian National Museum, containing remarkable treasures ranging from the oldest skull found in Europe to Franz Liszt’s gold baton; the Belvárosi Templom, Hungary’s oldest church, dating from the 12th century, the Museum of Fine Arts housing European paintings and the Ethnographic Museum. Margaret Island, connected to both Buda and Pest by bridges is a park with a sports stadium, swimming pool, spas, a rose garden and fountains. Budapest has about 100 hot springs.

TheDanube

The Carpathian Basin upstream from Budapest has long been a favourite summer retreat from the humid heat of the capital. Three historic towns draw most of the visitors. A few miles further up river, Szentendre is an old market town originally inhabited by Serbian refugees from the Turks. Churches had to face east regardless of their position on the streets, producing unusual layouts, and the Serbian house styles added greatly to the village’s charm. Due to trade restrictions and floods, the town was abandoned, only to be rediscovered and settled by Hungarian artists in the 1920s. The Margit Kovács Musuem has a remarkable display of the work of Hungary's greatest ceramicist. The Béla Czóbel Museum shows paintings from the 1890s and the Károly Ferenczy Museum contains historical, archaeological and ethnographic collections as well as paintings. The Serbian Museum for Ecclesiastical History contains many fine examples of ecclesiastical art from the 14th to 18th centuries. The Ethnographic Museum (skanzen) is a large open-air addition from the 1960s, still being added to, of reconstructed folk villages from all over the country.

VISEGRAD: A few miles further upriver, Visegrád was once a royal stronghold, but is now a rather sleepy tourist resort with spectacular views over the Danube. The 15th century summer palace has been excavated and restored, and the Mátyás Museum in the Salamon Tower displays many archaeological discoveries.

ESZTERGOM: Esztergom, originally a Roman outpost, later became the country's capital from the 11th to the 14th centuries and remains at the heart of the country’s Catholicism. Hungary’s largest Basilica, the Palace ruins, the Museum of the Stronghold of Esztergom and the Christian Museum of Esztergom, containing some of Hungary’s finest art collections, are all important attractions.

The West & Lake Balaton

Sopron, close to the Austrian frontier, is built on old Roman foundations, and reminders of the region’s history are still very much in evidence in the town’s 240 listed buildings. Among the sights here are the Firewatch Tower, Storno House showing Roman, Celtic and Avar relics as well as mementoes of Franz Liszt, the Gothic Goat Church and the gargoyled Church of St Michael.

ELSEWHERE:

Twenty-seven kilometres (17 miles) away is the Baroque Esterházy Palace at Fertöd, designed to rival Versailles; Josef Haydn was music master here at the end of the 18th century. Nearby is the spa town of Balf. The walled town of Köszeg and the riverside town of Györ, on the main Budapest–Vienna highway, Szombathely (which claims to be the oldest town in Hungary and has much excellent Romanesque stonework) and Zalaegerszeg are also attractive towns to visit. Located between Budapest and Lake Balaton, Székesfehérvár boasts a Baroque Town Hall, as well as the Zichy Palace and the Garden of Ruins – an open-air museum. Fertõ-Hanság National Park, whose main areas are Lake Fertõ, the westernmost steppe lake in Eurasia, and the Hanság, an area of wetlands, adjoins the Austrian National Park Neusiedlersee-Seewinkel. Birdwatching, cycling and hiking are popular, and there is a permanent wildlife and ethnographic museum at Öntésmajor.

LAKE BALATON:

Lake Balaton is a popular holiday region because of its sandy beaches (strands) and shallow waters. The surrounding countryside consists mainly of fertile plains dotted with old villages. Siófok, on the south shore of the lake, has some of the sandiest beaches and best facilities for tourists. Keszthely is a pleasant old town - the Balaton’s best - including the Festetics Palace with its Helicon Library, and the Balaton Museum. Hévíz, Europe’s largest thermal lake, is a short bus ride away. Balatonfüred is a well-known health resort with 11 medicinal springs. Tihany's Benedictine Abbey was founded in 1055; Belsô-tó Lake and the Aranyház geyser cones are nearby. Veszprém, 10km (6 miles) north of Lake Balaton, is a pretty town with cobbled streets, built on five hills. It is the home of the Var Museum, an Episcopal Palace and the 15th-century Gizella Chapel.

The Great Plain Area

This region covers more than half the country and contains thousands of acres of vineyards, orchards and farmland. Kecskemét, 85km (53 miles) southeast of the capital, is the home town of the composer Zoltán Kodály. Although an industrial town in many respects, there is still an artists’ colony and a centre for folk music there. It also has some fine examples of peasant architecture and of crafts in the Native Artists and Katona Jozsef Museum. Outside the town the Kiskunság National Park preserves parts of the Danube Tisza Floodplain of Central Hungary in seven disconnected areas including swamps, alkali plateaus and lakes. The famous Bugac Puszta stretches out here as well. Szeged is the economic and cultural centre of this region, housing Hungary’s finest Greek Orthodox (Serbian) church. Baja is a small, picturesque town on the banks of both the Danube and Sugovica rivers with many small islands, old churches and an artists’ colony. Further east is the Hortobágy National Park, the ‘Hungarian Puszta’, the alkali plains which begin the Asian steppes.

Southern Hungary

Pécs, one of Transdanubia’s largest towns, was colonised by the Romans, has the fifth oldest university in Europe (1367) and the finest Hungarian examples of Ottoman architecture from Turkish occupancy (1543-1686). Important tourist sites include the Cathedral, the Mosque of Gazi Kasim Pasha, and the Archaeological Museum. The Danube-Drava National Park encompases the area between these two rivers and includes Mohács, on the Danube, with the battlefield – now a memorial park – where, in 1586, the Turks gained control of the country, and Kalocsa, noted for its folk museums. South of the town is the attractive Forest of Gemenc which can be explored by boat or narrow-gauge trains.

The Northern Highlands

Miskolc, Hungary’s second-largest city, is situated near the Slovak border. Primarily industrial, the city has nevertheless several points of interest, including medieval architecture and the warren of man-made caves in the Avas Hills near the city centre. Nearby are the beautiful forested Bükk National Park, part of the Northern Hill Range, which is also an area of karst topography including the country’s deepest caves at Lillafüred; many traces of Neanderthal man have been found here. North of Bükk, the Aggtelek National Park is part of the Gömör Torna Karst area of cave systems which extends into Slovakia. Caving, fishing and riding are popular, and there are many cultural monuments, masterpieces of folk architecture, ruins recalling the atmosphere of the Middle Ages, old churches, graveyards and locally surviving farming techniques. Eger, one of the country’s oldest and most colourful cities, has nearly 200 historical monuments including its fourteen-sided Minaret; just west of the town are the vineyards of the Szépasszony Valley where one can sample the famous Bikavér (Bull's Blood) wine. Due east is Tokaj, the equivalent of Champagne as a wine-producing area. Halfway between Tokaj and the Slovak border is the spectacular Sárospatak Castle, one of Hungary’s greatest historical monuments.

Information

Area: 93,030 sq km (35,919 sq miles).

Population: 10,174,000 (2002).

Population Density: 109.4 per sq km.

Capital: Budapest. Population: 1,815,000 (2001).

Geography: Hungary is situated in Central Europe, sharing borders to the north with the Slovak Republic, to the northeast with Ukraine, to the east with Romania, to the south with Croatia and Serbia and to the west with Austria and Slovenia. There are several ranges of hills, chiefly in the north and west. The Great Plain (Nagyalföld) stretches east from the Danube to the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in the CIS, to the mountains of Transylvania in Romania, and south to the Fruska Gora range in Croatia. Lake Balaton is the largest unbroken stretch of inland water in Central Europe.

Government: Republic. Head of State: President Ferenc Mádl since 2000. Head of Government: Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy since 2002.

Language: Hungarian (Magyar) is the official language. German and English are widely spoken. Some French is also spoken, mainly in western Hungary.

Religion: 65 per cent Roman Catholic, 20 per cent Calvinist. Eastern Orthodox and Jewish minorities. There is no official national religion.

Time: GMT + 1 (GMT + 2 from last Sunday in March to Saturday before last Sunday in October).

Electricity: 220 volts AC, 50Hz. European-style two-pin plugs are used.

Communications:

Telephone: IDD available. Country code: 36. Outgoing international code: 00. Public telephones are operated by Ft5, 10, Ft20, Ft50 and Ft100 coins or by telephone cards.

Mobile telephone: GSM dual band 900/1800; coverage throughout the country. Network operators include Pannon GSM Telecoms, Westel Mobile Telecommunications Company and Vodafone.

Fax/telegram: Services are available at main post offices all over the country and at the Telecommunications Information and Service Office, Petõfi Sándor u., Budapest.

Internet: ISPs include Matav (website: www.matav.hu). There are Internet cafes in larger towns.

Post: Airmail takes three days to one week to reach other European destinations. In addition to the main post office, the offices at West and East railway stations in Budapest are open daily 0700-2100. Stamps are available from tobacconists as well as post offices. Post office hours: Mon-Fri 0800-1800; Sat 0700-1400.

Press: National dailies include Népszabadság, Magyar Hirlap and Népszava. English-language newspapers include the Budapest Business Journal, Budapest Week, Courier Diplomatique, The Budapest Sun, The Hungarian Economy, The Hungarian Observer, and The Hungarian Quarterly

The Danube

The Carpathian Basin upstream from Budapest has long been a favourite summer retreat from the humid heat of the capital. Three historic towns draw most of the visitors. A few miles further up river, Szentendre is an old market town originally inhabited by Serbian refugees from the Turks. Churches had to face east regardless of their position on the streets, producing unusual layouts, and the Serbian house styles added greatly to the village’s charm. Due to trade restrictions and floods, the town was abandoned, only to be rediscovered and settled by Hungarian artists in the 1920s. The Margit Kovács Musuem has a remarkable display of the work of Hungary's greatest ceramicist. The Béla Czóbel Museum shows paintings from the 1890s and the Károly Ferenczy Museum contains historical, archaeological and ethnographic collections as well as paintings. The Serbian Museum for Ecclesiastical History contains many fine examples of ecclesiastical art from the 14th to 18th centuries. The Ethnographic Museum (skanzen) is a large open-air addition from the 1960s, still being added to, of reconstructed folk villages from all over the country.

VISEGRAD: A few miles further upriver, Visegrád was once a royal stronghold, but is now a rather sleepy tourist resort with spectacular views over the Danube. The 15th century summer palace has been excavated and restored, and the Mátyás Museum in the Salamon Tower displays many archaeological discoveries.

ESZTERGOM: Esztergom, originally a Roman outpost, later became the country's capital from the 11th to the 14th centuries and remains at the heart of the country’s Catholicism. Hungary’s largest Basilica, the Palace ruins, the Museum of the Stronghold of Esztergom and the Christian Museum of Esztergom, containing some of Hungary’s finest art collections, are all important attractions.

The West & Lake Balaton

Sopron, close to the Austrian frontier, is built on old Roman foundations, and reminders of the region’s history are still very much in evidence in the town’s 240 listed buildings. Among the sights here are the Firewatch Tower, Storno House showing Roman, Celtic and Avar relics as well as mementoes of Franz Liszt, the Gothic Goat Church and the gargoyled Church of St Michael.

ELSEWHERE:

Twenty-seven kilometres (17 miles) away is the Baroque Esterházy Palace at Fertöd, designed to rival Versailles; Josef Haydn was music master here at the end of the 18th century. Nearby is the spa town of Balf. The walled town of Köszeg and the riverside town of Györ, on the main Budapest–Vienna highway, Szombathely (which claims to be the oldest town in Hungary and has much excellent Romanesque stonework) and Zalaegerszeg are also attractive towns to visit. Located between Budapest and Lake Balaton, Székesfehérvár boasts a Baroque Town Hall, as well as the Zichy Palace and the Garden of Ruins – an open-air museum. Fertõ-Hanság National Park, whose main areas are Lake Fertõ, the westernmost steppe lake in Eurasia, and the Hanság, an area of wetlands, adjoins the Austrian National Park Neusiedlersee-Seewinkel. Birdwatching, cycling and hiking are popular, and there is a permanent wildlife and ethnographic museum at Öntésmajor.

LAKE BALATON:

Lake Balaton is a popular holiday region because of its sandy beaches (strands) and shallow waters. The surrounding countryside consists mainly of fertile plains dotted with old villages. Siófok, on the south shore of the lake, has some of the sandiest beaches and best facilities for tourists. Keszthely is a pleasant old town - the Balaton’s best - including the Festetics Palace with its Helicon Library, and the Balaton Museum. Hévíz, Europe’s largest thermal lake, is a short bus ride away. Balatonfüred is a well-known health resort with 11 medicinal springs. Tihany's Benedictine Abbey was founded in 1055; Belsô-tó Lake and the Aranyház geyser cones are nearby. Veszprém, 10km (6 miles) north of Lake Balaton, is a pretty town with cobbled streets, built on five hills. It is the home of the Var Museum, an Episcopal Palace and the 15th-century Gizella Chapel.

The Great Plain Area

This region covers more than half the country and contains thousands of acres of vineyards, orchards and farmland. Kecskemét, 85km (53 miles) southeast of the capital, is the home town of the composer Zoltán Kodály. Although an industrial town in many respects, there is still an artists’ colony and a centre for folk music there. It also has some fine examples of peasant architecture and of crafts in the Native Artists and Katona Jozsef Museum. Outside the town the Kiskunság National Park preserves parts of the Danube Tisza Floodplain of Central Hungary in seven disconnected areas including swamps, alkali plateaus and lakes. The famous Bugac Puszta stretches out here as well. Szeged is the economic and cultural centre of this region, housing Hungary’s finest Greek Orthodox (Serbian) church. Baja is a small, picturesque town on the banks of both the Danube and Sugovica rivers with many small islands, old churches and an artists’ colony. Further east is the Hortobágy National Park, the ‘Hungarian Puszta’, the alkali plains which begin the Asian steppes.

Southern Hungary

Pécs, one of Transdanubia’s largest towns, was colonised by the Romans, has the fifth oldest university in Europe (1367) and the finest Hungarian examples of Ottoman architecture from Turkish occupancy (1543-1686). Important tourist sites include the Cathedral, the Mosque of Gazi Kasim Pasha, and the Archaeological Museum. The Danube-Drava National Park encompases the area between these two rivers and includes Mohács, on the Danube, with the battlefield – now a memorial park – where, in 1586, the Turks gained control of the country, and Kalocsa, noted for its folk museums. South of the town is the attractive Forest of Gemenc which can be explored by boat or narrow-gauge trains.

The Northern Highlands

Miskolc, Hungary’s second-largest city, is situated near the Slovak border. Primarily industrial, the city has nevertheless several points of interest, including medieval architecture and the warren of man-made caves in the Avas Hills near the city centre. Nearby are the beautiful forested Bükk National Park, part of the Northern Hill Range, which is also an area of karst topography including the country’s deepest caves at Lillafüred; many traces of Neanderthal man have been found here. North of Bükk, the Aggtelek National Park is part of the Gömör Torna Karst area of cave systems which extends into Slovakia. Caving, fishing and riding are popular, and there are many cultural monuments, masterpieces of folk architecture, ruins recalling the atmosphere of the Middle Ages, old churches, graveyards and locally surviving farming techniques. Eger, one of the country’s oldest and most colourful cities, has nearly 200 historical monuments including its fourteen-sided Minaret; just west of the town are the vineyards of the Szépasszony Valley where one can sample the famous Bikavér (Bull's Blood) wine. Due east is Tokaj, the equivalent of Champagne as a wine-producing area. Halfway between Tokaj and the Slovak border is the spectacular Sárospatak Castle, one of Hungary’s greatest historical monuments.

Information

Area: 93,030 sq km (35,919 sq miles).

Population: 10,174,000 (2002).

Population Density: 109.4 per sq km.

Capital: Budapest. Population: 1,815,000 (2001).

Geography: Hungary is situated in Central Europe, sharing borders to the north with the Slovak Republic, to the northeast with Ukraine, to the east with Romania, to the south with Croatia and Serbia and to the west with Austria and Slovenia. There are several ranges of hills, chiefly in the north and west. The Great Plain (Nagyalföld) stretches east from the Danube to the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains in the CIS, to the mountains of Transylvania in Romania, and south to the Fruska Gora range in Croatia. Lake Balaton is the largest unbroken stretch of inland water in Central Europe.

Government: Republic. Head of State: President Ferenc Mádl since 2000. Head of Government: Prime Minister Péter Medgyessy since 2002.

Language: Hungarian (Magyar) is the official language. German and English are widely spoken. Some French is also spoken, mainly in western Hungary.

Religion: 65 per cent Roman Catholic, 20 per cent Calvinist. Eastern Orthodox and Jewish minorities. There is no official national religion.

Time: GMT + 1 (GMT + 2 from last Sunday in March to Saturday before last Sunday in October).

Electricity: 220 volts AC, 50Hz. European-style two-pin plugs are used.

Communications:

Telephone: IDD available. Country code: 36. Outgoing international code: 00. Public telephones are operated by Ft5, 10, Ft20, Ft50 and Ft100 coins or by telephone cards.

Mobile telephone: GSM dual band 900/1800; coverage throughout the country. Network operators include Pannon GSM Telecoms, Westel Mobile Telecommunications Company and Vodafone.

Fax/telegram: Services are available at main post offices all over the country and at the Telecommunications Information and Service Office, Petõfi Sándor u., Budapest.

Internet: ISPs include Matav (website: www.matav.hu). There are Internet cafes in larger towns.

Post: Airmail takes three days to one week to reach other European destinations. In addition to the main post office, the offices at West and East railway stations in Budapest are open daily 0700-2100. Stamps are available from tobacconists as well as post offices. Post office hours: Mon-Fri 0800-1800; Sat 0700-1400.

Press: National dailies include Népszabadság, Magyar Hirlap and Népszava. English-language newspapers include the Budapest Business Journal, Budapest Week, Courier Diplomatique, The Budapest Sun, The Hungarian Economy, The Hungarian Observer, and The Hungarian Quarterly