Best Things to Do in Budapest

Budapest's best sights cluster along the Danube bends and the grand radial avenues of Pest. Here are the ten experiences we prioritise on a first visit, followed by a few well-marketed stops you can comfortably leave out.

1. The Hungarian Parliament and Shoes on the Danube. Tour the gilded staircase and 16-sided central hall where the Holy Crown of Hungary is guarded, then walk south along the embankment to the cast-iron shoes memorialising the victims of the Arrow Cross militia in 1944 and 1945.
2. Fisherman's Bastion and Matthias Church at sunrise. Climb to the neo-Romanesque stone lookouts on Castle Hill before the tour buses arrive, when the upper terrace is free and the morning sun lights the Parliament across the river.
3. A morning or late evening in the thermal baths. Swim in the steaming outdoor yellow courtyard pools of Széchenyi Baths in City Park, or soak beneath the 16th-century Ottoman dome and rooftop hot tub at Rudas Baths at the foot of Gellért Hill.
4. Buda Castle and St Stephen's Hall. Explore the cobbled lanes of the Castle Quarter, the courtyards of the Royal Palace and the richly restored Szent István-terem with its Zsolnay pyrogranite fireplace.
5. The Jewish Quarter and its three synagogues. Visit the Moorish-revival Dohány Street Synagogue, the Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Park and the restored Rumbach Street and Kazinczy Street synagogues within a ten-minute walk.
6. Andrássy Avenue and Millennium Underground Line M1. Walk the tree-lined boulevard past the State Opera House and the House of Terror to Heroes' Square, then ride continental Europe's oldest underground line back into the centre in wooden-panelled carriages.
7. Gellért Hill and the reopened Citadella. Hike the shaded paths from Gellért Square past the Pauline Cave Church to the Liberty Statue and the newly opened fortress park for the widest panorama of Budapest's bridges.
8. St Stephen's Basilica and the Postal Savings Bank roof. Climb the Basilica dome for a 360-degree view over Pest's rooftops, then walk through Lipótváros to spot Ödön Lechner's green-and-yellow majolica beehives and ceramic snakes.
9. City Park (Városliget) and the House of Music. Pair the fairy-tale towers of Vajdahunyad Castle with Sou Fujimoto's glass-walled House of Music Hungary and the sweeping rooftop garden of the Museum of Ethnography.
10. Szimpla Kert and an evening Tram 2 ride. Browse Szimpla Kert on Kazinczy utca in the afternoon or early evening before the queues build, then ride yellow Tram 2 along the Pest embankment after dark for a public-transport river cruise.

What we would skip: restaurants and souvenir shops along pedestrianised Váci utca (walk it once to see the architecture, but eat two streets away); the overpriced Castle Hill Funicular (Sikló) if there is a long queue at Clark Ádám tér, since the public elevators inside Várkert Bazár and on the west side of the hill are free and bus 16 climbs up on a regular transit pass; and any evening river dinner cruise where the food matters more than the deck view. Take a daytime BKK boat, an evening sightseeing boat without the buffet, or simply ride Trams 2 and 19 on both banks.