Info about preparing for restarting our tours (late-July or beginning of August 2020)

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In the following post we are going to introduce our new, safe walking tours that you can take during/after the Covid-19 pandemic after we restart our daily tours (probably late-July or beginning of August 2020).

Life is slowly returning, travelling can be done soon with minor restrictions, and we are also preparing for restarting our walking tours. Besides our free walking tours and private tours, we have prepared low-cost, small group walking tours for our guests. The advantages of these tours are the following:

  • We limit the number of participants on these walking tours: the maximum is 12 people in a group
  • Since the group is smaller than on an average free walking tour, everyone can keep 1.5-2 meters distance from fellow travellers and still hear the guide during the walking tour
  • We try to avoid physical contact on these tours: you book online and you can pay in a contactless way online as well (but paying on the spot is also possible); we do not hand out flyers or printed materials (unless someone asks for it)

The walking tours that will be available as a small group tour: General Budapest Tour, Jewish Quarter Tour, Communism Tour. The days, times and prices of these tours will be announced later, when we are sure about the date of starting again (probably late-July or beginning of August 2020).

Until we restart our daily free tours, you are welcome to book a private tour with us here on the website for a fair price. You can also e-mail us at info@triptobudapest.hu or booking@triptobudapest.hu for more information!

You can also follow us on Facebook, we post information regularly about restarting our tours there, too: https://www.facebook.com/triptobudapest.hu/?ref=bookmarks


Stay tuned and safe! 😊

News during the coronavirus pandemic – 01.05.2020.

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Dear Everyone, we hope that you are doing okay as much as things can be going okay during these difficult times.

We just wanted to let you know that we are alive and cannot wait to be with you on our free tours and other kind of walking tours in Budapest again!

We are preparing new options as well for life after the Covid-19 pandemic. Besides our free walking tours low-cost, small-group walking tours will be available as well for those who would like to avoid crowded walking tours. We will guarantee small groups of maximum 10 people, this way everyone can keep distance from fellow travellers and still hear the guide during the whole tour.

During the time when we cannot do walking tours yet, we are also making a photo sequence, we take pictures of statues in Budapest wearing a mask. Here is the first two of these photos:

The Little Princess sitting on the Danube Promenade. The original 50 cm statuette of the Little Princess (Kiskirálylány) in Budapest, Hungary was created by László Marton (1925–2008) Munkácsy- and Kossuth Prize-winning sculptor in 1972.The artist was inspired by his eldest daughter who often played wearing a princess costume and a crown made out of newspaper by her father, pretending her bathrobes were a mantle. This image prompted her father, the artist in the creation of this little statue. A larger copy was placed on the Danube promenade in 1990. The special thing about this version is that Hungary just went through the regime change, Communism ended, and Democracy started in 1989. They removed most of the statues of the Communist period from the inner city of Budapest and this Little Princess on the Danube Promenade was the first statue that did not depict a Communist leader, politician, a Soviet soldier or a muscular worker, but it depicted a little girl without any ideological meaning. You can see a copy of the same statue in Japan – that was donated by the artist – in front of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space cultural centre’s concert hall. The original statuette (1972 version) is owned by the Hungarian National Gallery.

The next one is Ferenc Puskás or Pancho as they call him in Spain. He was the greatest Hungarian football player ever; with his “Golden team” they were unbeaten for 4 years, between 1950 and 1954 and they won the Olypics as well. In 1953 they played a legendary game against England in the Wembley Stadium and the Golden team won for 6:3.

Later Puskás played in the Real Madrid then he was a coach in many countries like Greece, Australia, Egypt, Paraguay, Chile… In 2004 he was listed as one of the best football players of all times by FIFA and in 2019 he got the posthumous honor of the “World Sports Legends Award”. You can find this group of statues a little bit out of the city centre of Budapest, in Óbuda (Old Buda).

Coronavirus news – 15.03.2020.

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Here you can read about our tours and the latest news and measures in Hungary in connection with the coronavirus situation.

FIRST, LET’S SEE WHAT IS HAPPENING WITH OUR TOURS: 

All our free walking tours and private tours are operating now, until further notice. We update our Facebook page regularly, when there is any news, you can follow us here: https://www.facebook.com/triptobudapest.hu/

Outdoor walking tours are one of the safer activities that can take place during these times and for this reason, we’re not cancelling any of our tours right now, but still taking precautionary measures to try and limit the spread of the virus. 

We also emphasize the following: please limit person-to-person contact, do not shake hands with your fellow travellers for now and try to keep some distance as well.  Buying hand sanitizer has become a serious “sport” and competition in Hungary, too, but if you can please have it with you all times and/or wash your hands with soap and water as often as you can. During our general Budapest free walking tour, there is a bathroom break when you can do this. At the end of our other free tours there are also nearby public toilets.

  • We are flexible with changing the route and other conditions of booked tours. 
  • We ask our guides to stay at home and do not work if they are unwell.
  • We are also limiting person-to-person contact, for example we do not make our guests sign the Disclaimer form in the beginning of our free tours, but we still consider the content of it valid:  Walking Tours Kft. will always strive to conduct a safe and incident free tour, we won’t be held liable for any participant’s safety or personal belongings. I hereby release and discharge not to sue Walking Tours Kft, their employees from all liability, claims demands, losses or damages on my account. Walking Tours Kft. reserves the right to deny participation in any tour or any person for any reason. The Guide also reserves the right to terminate tour service for any client at any time for good cause. We strongly believe in the value of intellectual property therefore any audio & video making during the tour requires our previous approval. Walking Tours Kft. neither shares user information with third parties nor releases personal information about you as an individual to third parties.

MEASURES THAT HUNGARY HAS TAKEN SO FAR: 

  • Hungary declared a state of emergency in the entire country due to the coronavirus epidemic. The special legal order allows the government to halt air traffic or public transportation, order quarantines in certain areas (or even evacuations), restrict usage of public spaces, or even prescribe civil defence obligations or draw companies under temporary state control.
  • Outdoors public events of over 500 people and indoors public events of over 100 people banned – this does not apply to workplaces and malls, but does apply to clubs, bigger pubs, cinemas, theatres.
  • No entry into Hungary is allowed from Italy, China, South Korea, Israel and Iran (except for Hungarian citizens who will automatically be ordered to self-isolate).
  • Schools have to close from the 16th of March, primary and secondary schools will switch over to digital remote education. 

Stay safe and tuned, we are going to keep you updated about our tours continuously!

Historical anniversaries in February

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There are a couple of anniversaries during February as well that are worth mentioning. Let us tell you about the siege of Budapest at the end of WW2 and a great Hungarian scientist.

First let’s see the siege of Budapest at the end of WW2 and the end of it in 1945 on the 13th of February. The siege of Budapest was the struggle for the Hungarian capital between 25 December 1944 and 13 February 1945 between the Soviet Union and Romania, and the Third Reich and Hungary. Nazi Germany occupied Hungary in 1944 on the 19th of March. During the siege at the end of the war, the first Soviet armored trooper appeared on November 3, 1944, and Budapest surrendered after 102 days. The defenders resisted the siege of the Soviets for about 50 days, though most of their supplies were lost in the early days of the clash, as they were stored in suburban warehouses that were soon taken by the siege. The civilian population was not evacuated, and many civilians were victims of the bloody struggle, whose contemporaries compared it to the Battle of Stalingrad.

The Soviet troops first dismantled the resistance on the Pest side, and then began to recapture the Buda side and the Buda Castle. To prevent them from crossing the Danube, the Nazi Germans blew up the bridges between the two sides of the River Danube. The Nazis tried to launch a series of rescues to help the troubled defenders. However, they never reached the city, despite the fact that about half of the Nazi German armor divisions serving on the Eastern Front were based in Hungary. The purpose of these operations was not to rescue the defenders anyway, but to bring new troops into the city. Finally, despite the orders of Adolf Hitler, the defenders decided to break out, and on the evening of February 11, an attempt began, but only a handful of soldiers reached the friendly lines and many of the defense commanders were captured. Shortly afterwards, the city was completely under Soviet control on 13 February. After this Soviet troops were stationed here and a few years after the end of WW2 they established a totalitarian Stalinist dictatorship in Hungary. If you wish to learn more about the Communist dictatorship in Hungary and how it changed during the decades until the change of the regime in 1989 join our daily Communism free walking tour! 🙂

And now about another anniversary that is in February: it was in 1920 on the 7th of February that József Béres, the inventor of the Béres Csepp (Béres Drops) was born. He was a biochemist and his product became very popular in our country. Béres Drops is a Hungaricum as well. Hungaricum is a collective term which denotes a value that is distinguished and distinguished by its superiority, its uniqueness, its specialty and its quality in Hungary. The Béres Drops was created in 1972 by József Béres, it is a medicine containing trace elements in complex form. The main motivation was that his sibling had cancer. József Béres assumed that the patient’s body lacks the trace elements contained in the drop, and that this deficiency suppresses the immune system to such an extent that in many cases this deficiency is responsible for the development of the tumor. By releasing these trace elements back into the human body, the immune system is able to fight cancer. For a long time, he struggled with the recognition of the drops with the authorities of the time: although it was a great success among patients (self-made and free on request), the authorities threatened him with imprisoning if he distributed the product. In 1975, a lawsuit was filed against him, but then the Béres Drops was patented in 1976 and marketed as a medicinal product in 1978. It was officially declared a drug in 2000, but was not recognized as a cure for cancer.To learn more about Hungarian discoveries and inventions you can join our daily general Budapest free walking tours at 10:30 and 14:30! See you soon! 🙂

Anniversaries in January in Hungarian science

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Even though Hungary is a small country, it gave a lot of smart guys and important inventions, discoveries to the world. Let us introduce you to 2 of these skilled scientists, who have their birth or death anniversaries in January.

WIGNER JENŐ

 

The number of Hungarian Nobel Prize winners is 13, which is quite a great number. In 1995 on the 1st of January Wigner Jenő (Eugene Wigner in English) passed away in Princeton, New Jersey, USA. He was a Hungarian-American theoretical physicist and mathematician and one of our 13 Nobel Prize winners. He received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963 “for his contributions to the theory of the atomic nucleus and the elementary particles, particularly through the discovery and application of fundamental symmetry principles”. He also performed ground-breaking work in pure mathematics: Wigner’s theorem is a cornerstone in the mathematical formulation of quantum mechanics. The world also knows him for his research into the structure of the atomic nucleus. In 1930, Princeton University recruited Wigner and another scientist, János Neumann (John von Neumann, who is a Hungarian, a key figure in the development of game theory and the concepts of cellular automata, the universal constructor and the digital computer) and they moved to the United States. Both guys worked on the Manhattan Project in the United States to develop atomic bombs. In the post war period Wigner served for several government bodies.

JEDLIK ÁNYOS

Our other “hero” is Ányos Jedlik, who was born on the 11th of January 1800 in Szimő, Kingdom of Hungary (today Zemné, Slovakia). He was an inventor, engineer, physicist, and Benedictine priest, also a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Hungarians and Slovaks consider him to be the unsung father of the dynamo and electric motor. It happened in 1827 that Jedlik started experimenting with electromagnetic rotating devices which he called lightning-magnetic self-rotors, and then in 1828 he demonstrated his first device which contained the three main parts of practical direct current motors: the stator, rotor, and commutator. In the prototype the stationary and the revolving parts were electromagnetic. They keep the first electromotor (which was built in 1828) and Jedlik’s operating instructions at the Museum of Applied Arts in our capital, Budapest. Special thing is that the motor still works perfectly today! However, a small “accident” happened, Jedlik reported his invention only decades later and the real date of it is uncertain. He had another invention and was ahead of his contemporaries in his scientific work. However, he did not speak about this most important invention of his, the prototype dynamo, until 1856 and it was not until 1861 that he mentioned it in writing in a list of inventories of the university. This document might serve as an evidence that Jedlik’s invention was the first dynamo, but still the development of the dynamo is connected to the name of Siemens nowadays.

If you would like to learn more about Hungarian inventions and do your Budapest sightseeing at the same time, join our daily general free walking tour every day at 10:30 and 14:30 on the Elisabeth square! 🙂

Budapest Holiday Season Schedules 2019

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Plan your trip to Budapest and find out what’s open and closed over Christmas and New Year’s Eve. We have collected the most important opening times around this Christmas holiday season for you.

Free walking tours around Christmas and the New Year:

  • 24th of December no afternoon and evening tours, last tour is the 10:30 am general Budapest tour
  • 25th no tours at all
  • 26-27-28-29-30th all free tours run
  • 31st morning tours, 2:30 pm Budapest tour run, last tour is the 3:30 pm Jewish quarter and the Communism free tours, evening tours do not run
  • 1st of January 2020 no tours at all
  • 2-3-4-5th of January all tours run

From the 6th of January until the 29th of March 2020 we DO NOT have:

  • the 10 am Avenue and Heroes’ square tour
  • the 3:30 pm Jewish quarter and the Communism free tours
  • the 6:30 pm Evening walking tour 
  • and the 8:30 pm ruin pub tour

We restart these tours on the 30th or March 2020. We run all our other free tours that are on our website and Facebook page.

Holiday Schedules of Budapest attractions and Walking Tours by date

December 24th Tuesday

SHOPS:
Shops are closing around noon. Christmas Market on Vörösmarty square 10 am – 2pm (handicraft shops),
10 am – 3 pm (food stalls)
Some seven-eleven shops will be open all night long. 

MUSEUMS: CLOSED

PARLIAMENT: CLOSED

BATHS: Szechenyi, Gellert, Lukacs, Rudas baths are open 6am-2pm.  Kiraly bath is open from 9am-2pm.

FREE TOURS

10.00am Jewish Quarter Walk
10.00am Communism Walking Tour
10.00am Avenue and Heroes’ Square
10.00am Urban Street Art
10.30am General Sightseeing Walk
10.30am Tours Gratis en Espanol
No afternoon tours are running.

Zoo: 9am-12pm ( noon)

Erkel Theatre: 11am Nutcracker

Opera House: CLOSED

CHURCHES: Churches are open all day long. Main service is at midnight.

Dohany street Grand Synagogue: CLOSED

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

Metro, buses, trams will operate as it was Sunday, till 4pm, then night buses will run.  No Christmas tram for today.

CHRISTMAS HABITS: Dec.24th is a private, family holiday in Hungary, we don’t go to parties. Kids are kept busy outside home, while parents or grandparents are decorating Christmas trees on the holy night. Christmas tree is bought by angels, gifts are bought by baby Jesus. Children enter the room only when tiny bells ring and they sing Christmas songs, then open their gifts.

CHRISTMAS MENU: The menu for lunch is something really light. One of the most typical is poppy seed bread pudding. We usually eat fish with mashed potatoes and beigli at Christmas night (This is a rolled up crust with lots of poppy seed or walnut filling.

GOOD TO KNOW: Streets are getting very quiet from early afternoon on.

December 25th, Wednesday

SHOPS: Shops are closed.  Christmas Market on Vörösmarty square 12 pm – 6 pm (handicraft shops), 10 am – 6 pm (food stalls). Shopping Malls are open for movies only. Shops in the malls are closed. Some seven-eleven shops will be open all day long. 

MUSEUMS: CLOSED

PARLIAMENT: CLOSED

FREE TOURS: No tours today.

BATHS:

  • Szechenyi Thermal Bath: 10:00am-10:00pm
  • Gellert: 10:00-8:00pm
  • Lukacs: 10:00am-10:00pm
  • Kiraly: 10:00am-9.00pm
  • Rudas: 10:00am-6:00pm

Zoo: 9am-3pm 

Erkel Theater: 11am- Nutcracker. 7pm- Messsiah

Opera: Closed

CHURCHES: Churches are open all day long. Main service is at 10am or 11am.

Dohany street Grand Synagoue: CLOSED

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: Metro,buses and trams will operate according to their Sunday schedule.

CHRISTMAS HABITS: Family members often travelling to another city or village to visit each other or spending this day at home with playing games, watching TV.

CHRISTMAS MENU: Fish soup (carp or catfish) with noodles and stuffed cabbage (sour cabbage) with minced pork. Beigli for dessert is essential 

GOOD TO KNOW: Streets are still quiet. Bars operate from afternoon. Fast food restaurants are closed. Jegbüfé café at Ferenciek tere with delicious strudels is OPEN 

December 26th Thursday

SHOPS: Shops are closed. Christmas Market on Vörösmarty square 12 pm – 6 pm (handicraft shops), 10 am – 6 pm (food stalls). Shopping Malls are open for movies. Shops in the malls are closed. Some seven-eleven shops are open. 

MUSEUMS:

  • National Museum: CLOSED
  • House of Terror: CLOSED 
  • Museum of Fine Arts: OPEN
  • National Gallery: 10am-6pm
  • Rock Hospital Museum: 10am-6pm

PARLIAMENT: CLOSED

FREE TOURS: All tours go as normal.

BATHS:

  • Szechenyi Thermal Bath: 10:00am-10:00pm
  • Gellert: 6:00-8:00pm
  • Lukacs: 6:00am-10:00pm
  • Kiraly: 9:00am-9.00pm
  • Rudas: 6:00am-10:00pm

Zoo: 9am-3pm

Erkel Theater: 11am; 6pm- Nutcracker

CHURCHES: Churches are open all day long.

Dohany street Grand Synagogue: 10am-6pm

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: Metro, buses and trams will operate as it was Sunday 

CHRISTMAS HABITS: Family members often travelling to another city or village to visit each other or spending this day at home with playing games, watching TV.

CHRISTMAS MENU: Fish soup (carp or catfish) with noodles and stuffed cabbage (sour cabbage) with minced pork. Beigli for dessert is essential 

GOOD TO KNOW: Streets are busier than during the previous two days.

Dec.27th-30th

Most shops, bars, restaurants, theatres, sightseeing tours and tourist attractions operate as normal. House of Terror is OPEN. National Museum is closed on Dec.30th. Museum of Fine Arts  is open on Dec.26th-30th   

Dohany street Grand Synagogue: Dec.27th 10am-2.00pm , Dec.28th Closed, Dec.29th10.00-6.00pm, Dec.30th 10.00-8.00pm, 

All baths are open.

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: Metro, buses and trams will operate as it was school holidays (intervals of 10-20 min)

December 31st  Tuesday

SHOPS: Shops are open. Shopping Malls are open 10am-2pm. Shops in the malls are partly closed. Some seven-eleven shops will be open all day and all night long. 

MUSEUMS: 

  • National Museum: CLOSED
  • House of Terror: 10.00-3.00pm OPEN
  • Museum of Fine Arts: OPEN 10am-4pm ( Cashier is closing at 3.00pm)
  • National Gallery: OPEN 10am-4pm.
  • Rock Hospital Museum: CLOSED

PARLIAMENT: 8am-2pm

FREE TOURS: All free tours run are running as scheduled, except: Evening Walk and Pub tour

BATHS: Szechenyi, Gellert, Rudas Lukacs baths are open 6am-6:00pm.  Kiraly bath is open from 9am-6pm

Zoo: 9am-12pm (noon)

Erkel Theater : 4.00pm The Bat ( JStrauss),   8.30pm- The Bat (J.Strauss) 

CHURCHES: Churches are open all day long. Main service varies from church to church.

Dohany street Grand Synagogue: OPEN: 10am-8pm

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: All night buses are operating. Cogwheel railway is operating too! No Christmas tram today!

NEW YEAR’S EVE HABITS: Streets are full with people before midnight. Street stalls on the streets of Budapest sell champagne, masks and noisy paper trumpets. Seniors are mainly watching TV or going to parties. We say “BUEK” (it means happy new year) at midnight and most of us sings the national anthem and greet each other.

NEW YEAR’S EVE MENU: Having lentil or bean dishes on New Year’s Eve makes you wealthy. Pork is considered a symbol of progress and prosperity so Hungarians eat mainly roast pork Avoid fish as it will swim away with your fortune. 

GOOD TO KNOW: Streets are busy all day long. Peak time is 8pm-midnight. Concerts and theatres have early evening performances and shows. Restaurants, bars, clubs have extended opening hours and many have live bands playing. There are lots of parties for New Year’s Eve, so you definitely won’t be bored! There are plenty of programs to entertain you from free street parties to upscale balls and crazy clubs with local DJ’s. Tickets varies from 2000-4900 HUF. The biggest public event of the year is “Ügetőszilveszter” (don’t even try to pronounce) at Kincsem Park. A place to go for both trotting and flat racing. Avastly popular extraordinary trotting meeting that attracts all ages on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve. 

FREE STREET PARTIES:

“VÖRÖSMARTY TER” – live bands from different countries will perform.
“NYUGATI TER” (M3 metro line, tram 6, 4)- Hungarian pop-rock bands will entertain you there.
“OKTOGON TER” (M1 metro line, tram 6.4) all night disco with Hungarian DJ-s.

Hint: Bring warm clothes! Buy champagne in the shops before arrival. (3€)

January 1st Wednesday

SHOPS: Shops are closed. Shopping Malls are closed. Some seven-eleven shops will be open all day and all night long. 

MUSEUMS:

  • National Museum: CLOSED
  • House of Terror: CLOSED
  • Museum of Fine Arts: OPEN 12pm-6pm
  • National Gallery:12pm-6pm
  • Rock Hospital Museum: CLOSED

PARLIAMENT: CLOSED

FREE TOURS: No tours are running today.

BATHS: All baths are open from 10am until their regular opening hours.

Zoo: 9am-3pm

Erkel Theater: New Year Concert

CHURCHES: Churches are open all day long. Main service varies from church to church.

Dohany street Grand Synagogue: OPEN: 10am-8.00pm

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION: Metro,buses and trams will operate according to their Sunday schedule.

HABITS FOR TODAY: Not much is happening usually today! We mainly sleep or go to the baths.

MENU FOR TODAY: Cabbage soup or hangover soup in the New Year morning. Roasted pig and cabbage is meant to bring good luck.

GOOD TO KNOW: Streets are quiet.  Restaurants, bars, clubs have varied opening hours. 

2nd of January 

Most of the things and places are back to normal schedule, but the National Gallery and the Museum of fine arts are closed.

Weather

Since Budapest has a continental climate, the only advice we can give is expect low temperatures, dress for the weather! It starts to get dark at about 4.15pm.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to Everyone! In Hungarian: Boldog Karácsonyt és Új Évet! 

Christmas market time in Budapest 2019

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Budapest has been selected to be the most wonderful city of Europe in wintertime by CNN. The Hungarian capital has been one of Europe’s leading travel destinations in the last couple of years: during the summer it is vibrant, full of festivals and programmes, and during wintertime it also comes alive offering a cosy winter atmosphere with romantic architectural creations, decorative winter lights and Christmas markets all over the downtown area. Budapest delivers a scene which can easily remind visitors of a classic Christmas movie. Besides the Christmas markets, outdoor ice skating rinks (amongst them Europe’s largest outdoor ice skating rink at the City Park) help to create a perfect winter wonderland, while the spas and thermal baths offer a twist on outdoor bathing: you can sit outside in a hot pool with snowflakes falling on your head even when temperatures go under 0 degree Celsius and enjoy the experience.

LET’S SEE A FEW CHRISTMAS MARKET VISITING TIPS FROM US TO YOU!

First of all, wear good, sturdy shoes and dress warmly to be able to fully enjoy the winter wonderland, it gets cold in the evening! We also recommend fingerless gloves or mitts that allow you to handle money or eat easily. If you find something you love, buy it to avoid disappointment that comes if you do not find the items at other markets. If they are present at other fairs, too, the prices will be comparable, but maybe you have limited time to do comparison shopping.

On the Vörösmarty square, where there is the main and oldest Christmas market of Budapest there are about a 120 craftsman who sell their products and there are also 16 outdoor restaurants which work traditionally with products from small producers and the best products of Hungarian small family farms. This Christmas fair was first organized in 1989 just after the regime change when Hungary became a democratic country after going through about 45 years of communist dictatorship. Every year in the last couple of years it has been amongst the best Christmas markets of Europe. They carefully and strictly select the local artists, family businesses and producers who can sell their handmade products during the time of the fair. The aim of the organizers is to preserve and present Hungarian folk and national traditions.

However, also think about how much you are purchasing and how you will pack it in your suitcase-bring bubble wrap & maybe a cylinder to put a print or canvas painting in to avoid breakage.

Most of the time they accept euros as well at the Christmas markets, but have small bills and be prepared that they will give you change in Hungarian Forints.

If possible, avoid weekends and evening hours. The best times are weekday afternoons from about 3 pm until evening to see the lights come on, too.

Stay tuned for more information, since we are going to launch an Alternative Christmas Market Magic Lights tour which is going to take place on the last days of December! Until that see you on our daily free walking tours in Budapest! 🙂

The beautifully renovated Paris courtyard

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When you are wandering around downtown Pest during your Budapest sightseeing, you can bump into a beautiful building that has been renovated recently and stands proudly on the Ferenciek square. Let us tell you more about this gem in our next article.

The Párisi udvar (Paris Courtyard) is one of the most beautiful and special constructions in the city center, reopened as a luxury hotel in 2019 after five years of renovation. It was formerly full of shops and then got abandoned, it became a favourite spot for city explorers – the most frequently asked question during the renovation was what would open here… After the hotel was ready, a restaurant and bar/café opened under the glass domes next to the reception and lobby, so if it gets chilly outside it is definitely worth to have a warm drink and cake inside.

The original building was constructed in 1817 according to the plans of Mihály Pollack (who was an Austrian-born Hungarian architect, key figure of neoclassical architecture. His main work is the Hungarian National Museum (1837–46)). The Paris Courtyard had one of the first modern shopping passages in Hungary. They believed that Pollack designed the passage of the building to be like the Passage des Panoramas in Paris (built around 1810), this is why they started calling it the Paris Courtyard. The light of the original building diminished over time, during the great urban settlements of the late 19th century. It was almost completely demolished at the turn of the 20th century, and the site was purchased by the Downtown Savings Bank in 1906 to build its new center there. The historicizing eclectic office and apartment house blending Moorish and Gothic styles was not seriously damaged during the Second World War, but in 1949 the emerging socialist system nationalized and remodelled its interiors. Then it got almost empty and run-down by 2014 when the renovation started. 

After the 5-year long renovation the building and the passage is now shining again, the two huge domes have been cleaned and rebuilt by the restorers. The electric glass ceiling overlooking Ferenciek Square is certainly unique in Hungary, but probably unique in the world as well. On the outside it is decorated with hundreds of thousands of ceramic tiles and ornaments. 

If you would like to find this beauty or other gems in Budapest, do not hesitate to ask your guide on our daily free tours! See you soon!

All Saints’ Day – 1st November 2019

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Please note that the 1st of November is All Saints’ Day, it will be a holiday in Hungary, too.

ALL OUR FREE TOURS WILL RUN ON THIS DAY.

10:00 Jewish quarter, Communism, Urban & Street art tour, Avenue & Heroes’ square free walking tour
10:30 & 14:30 General Budapest free tour
15:30 Jewish quarter, Communism tours
18:30 Evening Pest walking tour
20:30 Pub tour

Shopping malls, bigger supermarkets will be closed on the 1st of November, but smaller non-stop supermarkets, some restaurants, some museums, bathhouses will be open.If you would like to see cemeteries of Budapest full of lit up candles, we recommend heading to the cemetery on Fiumei Road in Pest (Fiumei úti sírkert in Hungarian) where you can stroll around the grand graves and magnificent mausoleums of several great Hungarians of history and see ordinary tombstones. Visiting the Farkasréti cemetery on the hills of Buda is also great if you would like to see some nice views, too.

Join our free tours this Friday as well on the Elisabeth square, close to the Budapest Eye Ferris wheel, we are waiting for your in blue uniforms and with a blue free tour flag! 🙂

October 23rd – National holiday in Hungary

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Please note that the 23rd of October is a national holiday in Hungary. However, we RUN ALL OUR FREE TOURS as usual on this day as well!

  • 10:00 Jewish quarter, Communism and Avenue & Heroes’ square free walking tour
  • 10:30 & 14:30 General Budapest free tour
  • 15:30 Jewish quarter, Communism and Street & Urban art free tour
  • 18:30 Evening Pest walking tour

Shopping malls, bigger supermarkets will be closed on the 23rd of October, but smaller non-stop supermarkets, some restaurants, bathhouses will be open.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT WHAT WE REMEMBER ON THIS DAY:

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a nationwide revolution against the Hungarian People’s Republic and its Soviet-imposed policies, it lasted from the 23rd of October until the 10th of November 1956. It was leaderless when it first began, but then it became the first major threat to Soviet control since the Red Army drove Nazi Germany from its territory at the End of World War II in Europe.You can learn much more about this revolution on our Communism free walking tour and even see some of the locations where the revolution started. Meet us on the Elisabeth square, close to the Budapest Eye Ferris wheel and get to know more about this national holiday!