Gellért Hill & The Tabán

Lonely Planet review

Gellért Hill, a rocky hill southeast of the Castle District, is crowned with a fortress and the Independence Monument. From Gellért Hill, you can't beat the views of the Royal Palace or the Danube and its fine bridges, and Jubilee Park on the south side is an ideal spot for a picnic. The Tabán, the leafy area between Gellért and Castle Hills, stretching northwest as far as Déli train station, is associated with the Serbs, who settled here after fleeing from the Turks in the early 18th century.

Plaques on I Döbrentei utca mark the water level of the Danube during two devastating floods in 1775 and 1838.

This neighbourhood later became known for its restaurants and wine gardens - a kind of Montmartre for Budapest. Most of these burned to the ground at the turn of the 20th century. All that remains is a lovely little renovated building with a fountain designed by Miklós Ybl in 1879 known as the Castle Garden Kiosk ( Várkert Kioszk ; I Ybl Miklós tér 2-6), once a pump house for Castle Hill and now a casino. The dilapidated steps and archways across the road, is all that is left of the Castle Bazaar ( Várbazár ) pleasure park.

Today Gellért Hill and the Tabán are given over to private homes, parks and three thermal spas that make good use of the hot springs gushing from deep below Gellért Hill: the recently renovated Rudas Baths and the Gellért Baths; the Rác Baths, designed by Miklós Ybl around a much older Turkish bath, was still under renovation at the time of writing. If you don't like getting wet you can try a 'drinking cure' by visiting the pump room ( ivócsarnok; which is within sight of the Rudas Baths just below the western end of Elizabeth Bridge. A half-litre/litre of the hot smelly water - meant to cure whatever ails you - is just Ft15 - Ft25 .