St Stephen's Basilica and Lipótváros: A Walking Route

Between the Hungarian Parliament and Deák Ferenc tér lies Lipótváros, the northern half of Pest's 5th district. Laid out in the 19th century as the financial and ministerial heart of the capital, its wide stone streets link Budapest's largest church, its most controversial Cold War and wartime monuments, and several masterpieces of Hungarian Art Nouveau (Szecesszió). This flat walk takes around two hours, plus time inside the Basilica.

1. St Stephen's Basilica (Szent István-bazilika): start on spacious Szent István tér. Completed in 1905 after 54 years of construction (including the collapse of the first dome during a storm in 1868), this Neoclassical church rises to 96 metres, matching the Parliament dome to symbolise the equality of church and state. Buy a combined ticket for the gilded interior (where the mummified right hand of Hungary's first Christian king, the Szent Jobb, rests in a reliquary chapel) and take the lift and spiral steps up to the outdoor circular walkway around the dome for the best central view over Pest's grid.
2. Zrínyi utca and the Gresham Palace vista: walk west down pedestrianised Zrínyi utca straight from the Basilica steps. Notice the bronze statue of the fat 1900s policeman on the corner of Október 6. utca, then stop at Széchenyi István tér to admire the Gresham Palace (1906, now the Four Seasons Hotel) facing the Chain Bridge, a curving Art Nouveau palace decorated with wrought-iron peacock gates and Zsolnay ceramic tiles.
3. Hold utca and the Postal Savings Bank roof: turn north into quiet Hold utca to number 4, the former Royal Postal Savings Bank designed by Ödön Lechner in 1901. Look up at the roofline: ceramic beehives (symbols of thrift) with golden bees climbing toward them, winged dragons and green-and-yellow majolica garlands turn a bank into a piece of Hungarian folk fantasy.
4. Liberty Square (Szabadság tér): step one block west into the grandest square in Lipótváros, framed by the former Stock Exchange Palace and the heavily guarded US Embassy. At the north end stands the Soviet War Memorial, the last remaining monument in central Budapest to the Red Army soldiers killed in the 1944 and 1945 siege; at the south end, the 2014 monument to the victims of the German occupation faces a permanent "living memorial" of handwritten notes, photographs and pebbles placed by citizens who argue the statue glosses over Hungary's own wartime state complicity.
5. The Imre Nagy statue and Vértanúk tere: walk out of the north-west corner of Szabadság tér toward the Parliament, where the bronze figure of 1956 reformist prime minister Imre Nagy stands on a small curved bridge looking toward the parliament building.