Andrássy Avenue: Budapest’s Eclectic UNESCO World Heritage Site

Andrássy is Budapest’s most famous avenue, connecting downtown with Heroes’ Square and Városliget City Park. On this walking tour I’ll tell you how, in the late-1800s, this grand avenue represented Budapest’s transformation into one of Europe’s biggest cities. I’ll also show you Andrássy’s major landmarks and some of its lesser-known spots.

The tour starts at the beginning of Andrássy Avenue near the Danube river, and ends in Heroes’ Square. You’ll zigzag your way down this UNESCO World Heritage-Listed boulevard, enjoying views of Medici-style squares and one of the great Revival buildings in Europe, Hungarian State Opera, which even prompted feelings of jealousy by neighboring Vienna. After crossing the Grand Boulevard, you’ll walk past the House of Terror, the former home of the local Nazi party and later the Communist secret police, who both used the location for detention and torture.

At Heroes’ Square I’ll point out other places of interest in the City Park, like the fairy-tale Vajdahunyad Castle, Széchenyi Thermal Bath, and two stunning examples of contemporary architecture: the House of Music and the Museum of Ethnography.

On this 45-60-minute tour you’ll have a chance to:

• Get a kick out of Heroes’ Square’s eclectic collection of statues, like the portrayal of tribal leaders who led the Hungarian people into the Carpathian Basin in the 800s AD
• Take the oldest subway line on the European continent, which travels between the city center and the City Park
• Pass by the apartment where the composer Franz Liszt lived and find out how students remember him
• See the buildings and villas in which Hungary’s top one percent lived during the golden decades of Austria-Hungary around the year 1900
• Find out about the darker sides of Andrássy Avenue, when parts of it were named after Hitler and Mussolini
• Hear about the time when the Communist regime tried to solve Budapest’s housing crisis
• Pass two excellent photography exhibition spaces, the Mai Mano House and the Robert Capa Center, my favorite bookstore, Írók Boltja, and Menza, a traditional Hungarian restaurant that I regularly visit

By the end of this tour, you’ll have gained fascinating context about Budapest’s most elegant boulevard, and the city as a whole.