Museum sights in Budapest
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House of Terror
This startling museum is housed in what was once the headquarters of the dreaded ÁVH secret police. The building has a ghastly history, for it was here that many activists of every political persuasion that was out of fashion before and after WWII were taken for interrogation and torture. The walls were apparently double thickness to mute the screams. A plaque on the outside of this house of shame reads in part: ‘We cannot forget the horror of terror, and the victims will always be remembered’.
The museum focuses on the crimes and atrocities committed by both Hungary’s fascist and Stalinist regimes in a permanent exhibition called Double Occupation. But the years aft…
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Hospital in the Rock
Part of the Castle Hill caves network, this newly opened attraction was used extensively during the siege of Budapest during WWII. It contains original medical equipment as well as some 70 wax figures and is visited on a guided half-hour tour. More interesting is the hour-long ‘full tour‘ (3000/1500/7000Ft), which includes a walk through a Cold War–era nuclear bunker.
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Castle Hill
Castle Hill, a 1km-long limestone plateau towering 170m above the Danube, contains Budapest's most important medieval monuments and museums and is a Unesco World Heritage Site. It is the premier sight in the capital, and with its grand views and so many things to see, you should start here.
Below is a 28km network of caves formed by thermal springs that were supposedly used by the Turks for military purposes, as air-raid shelters during WWII, and as a secret military installation during the Cold War.
The walled area consists of two distinct parts: the Old Town to the north, where commoners lived in the Middle Ages (the current owners of the coveted burgher houses here are …
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Hungarian National Museum
The National Museum (a neoclassical structure, purpose-built in 1847) houses Hungary’s most important collection of historical relics. Exhibits trace the history of the Carpathian Basin from earliest times to the end of the Avar period in the early 9th century (on the 1st floor); and the Magyar people and the nation from the conquest of the Carpathian basin to the fall of communism (on the 2nd floor). In the basement, a lapidarium has finds from Roman, medieval and early modern times. Look out for the enormous 3rd-century Roman mosaic from Balácapuszta, near Veszprém; the crimson silk royal coronation robe (or mantle) stitched by nuns in 1031; a reconstructed 3rd-century …
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Ethnography Museum
Visitors are offered an easy introduction to traditional Hungarian life at this sprawling museum opposite the parliament building with thousands of displays in 13 rooms on the 1st floor. The mock-ups of peasant houses from the Őrség and Sárköz regions of Western and Southern Transdanubia are well done, and there are also some priceless objects collected from Transdanubia. On the 2nd floor, most of the temporary exhibitions deal with other peoples of Europe and farther afield: Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. The building itself was designed in 1893 to house the Supreme Court; note the ceiling fresco in the lobby of Justice by Károly Lotz.
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Ludwig Museum of Contemporary Art
Housed in the architecturally controversial Palace of Arts opposite the National Theatre, the Ludwig Museum is Hungary’s most important collector and exhibitor of international contemporary art. Works by American, Russian, German and French artists span the past 50 years, while Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian, Romanian, Polish and Slovenian works date from the 1990s onward. The museum also holds frequent, cutting edge, temporary exhibitions.
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Zwack Unicum Museum & Visitor Centre
If you really can’t get enough of Unicum – the thick, brown medicinal-tasting bitter aperitif made from 40 herbs, clocking in at 42% alcohol, supposedly named by Franz Joseph himself – visit this very commercial museum tracing the history of the product since it was first made in 1790 and inviting visitors to buy big at its sample store (mintabolt). Enter from Dandár utca.
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Applied Arts Museum
This museum owns a king’s ransom of Hungarian furniture dating from the 18th and 19th centuries, art nouveau and Secessionist artefacts, and objects related to the history of trades and crafts (glass making, bookbinding, goldsmithing, leatherwork etc). But only a small part of it forms the 400-piece ‘Collectors and Treasures’ permanent exhibit on the 1st floor. Most everything else makes up part of one of the four or five temporary exhibitions on display at any given time. A combined ticket (2500/1250/4500Ft per adult/student or child/family) will get you into everything. It’s a novel way to rake in the dosh – just make everything a temporary exhibit. Consider visiting th…
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Kiscelli Museum & Municipal Picture Gallery
Housed in an 18th-century monastery, later a barracks that was badly damaged in WWII and again in 1956, this museum contains two excellent sections. The Contemporary City History Collection (Újkori Várostörténeti Gyűjtemény) in which you’ll find a complete 19th-century apothecary moved here from Kálvin tér; a wonderful assembly of ancient signboards advertising shops and other trades; and rooms (both public and private) furnished in Empire, Biedermeier and art nouveau furniture and bric-a-brac. The Municipal Picture Gallery (Fővárosi Képtár), with its impressive collection of art works by József Rippl-Rónai, Lajos Tihanyi, István Csók and Béla Czóbel (among others) is up…
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Hungarian Electrical Engineering Museum
This place doesn’t sound like everyone’s cup of tea, but the white-coated staff are very enthusiastic and some of the exhibits are unusual enough for a visit. Its collection of 19th-century generators, condensers, motors and – egad – the world’s largest supply of electricity-consumption meters is not very inspiring, but the staff will show you how the alarm system of the barbed-wire fence between Hungary and Austria once worked. There’s also a display on the nesting platforms that the electric company kindly builds for storks throughout the country so they won’t try to nest on the wires and electrocute themselves. Sizzling stuff.
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Holocaust Memorial Center
This centre, housed in a striking modern building in a working-class neighbourhood, opened in 2004 on the 60th anniversary of the start of the holocaust in Hungary. Both a museum and an educational foundation, the centre’s permanent exhibition traces the rise of anti-Semitism in Hungary from 1938 to the mass deportations of Jews to German death camps in 1944–45. A sublimely restored synagogue, designed by Leopold Baumhorn and completed in 1924, in the central courtyard hosts temporary exhibitions on everything from the Anschluss to the genocide of the Roma people during WWII. An 8m-high wall outside records the names of Hungarian victims of the Holocaust.
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Underground Railway Museum
In the pedestrian subway beneath V Deák Ferenc tér and next to the main ticket window, the Underground Railway Museum traces the history of the capital’s three (and soon to be four!) underground lines, and displays plans for the future. Much emphasis is put on the little yellow metro (M1), Continental Europe’s first underground railway, which opened for the millenary celebrations in 1896 and was completely renovated for the millecentenary 100 years later. In fact, the museum is housed in a stretch of tunnel that once formed part of the M1 line until it was diverted in 1955.
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Hungarian Agricultural Museum
This rather esoteric museum is housed in the stunning baroque wing of Vajdahunyad Castle. Built for the 1896 millenary celebrations on the little island in the park’s lake, the castle was modelled after a fortress in Transylvania – but with Gothic, Romanesque and baroque wings and additions to reflect architectural styles from all over Hungary. Spread over 5200 sq metres of floor space you’ll find Europe’s largest collection of things agricultural (fruit production, cereals, wool, poultry, pig slaughtering, viticulture etc).
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Transport Museum
The Transport Museum has one of the most enjoyable collections in Budapest and is a great place for kids. In an old and a new wing there are scale models of ancient trains (some of which run), classic late-19th-century automobiles, sailing boats and lots of those old wooden bicycles called ‘bone-shakers’. There are a few hands-on exhibits and lots of show-and-tell from the attendants. Outside are pieces from the original Danube bridges that were retrieved after the bombings of WWII, and a cafe in an old MÁV coach.
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Telephony Museum
This museum, set within a lovely backstreet garden, documents the history of the telephone in Hungary since 1881, when the world’s first switchboard – a Rotary 7A1 still working and the centrepiece of the exhibition – was set up in Budapest. Other exhibits pay tribute to Tivadar Puskás, a Hungarian associate of Thomas Edison, and of the latter’s fleeting visit to Budapest in 1891. Enter from Országház utca 30 on Saturday and Sunday.
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Budapest History Museum
The Budapest History Museum looks at the 2000 years of the city, on three floors. Restored palace rooms dating from the 15th century can be entered from the basement, where there are three vaulted halls, one with a magnificent Renaissance door frame in red marble bearing the seal of Queen Beatrice and tiles with a raven and a ring (the seal of her husband King Matthias Corvinus), leading to the Gothic Hall, the Royal Cellar and the 14th-century Tower Chapel.
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Hungarian Natural History Museum
Just one metro stop southeast of the Ferenc körút station, the Natural History Museum has lots of hands-on interactive displays over three floors. The geological park in front of the museum is well designed, the fin whale skeleton in the entrance lobby very impressive and there’s an interesting exhibit focusing on both the natural resources of the Carpathian Basin and the flora and fauna of Hungarian legends and tales.
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Electrotechnology Museum
This museum has a collection of 19th-century generators, condensers and motors, and the world's largest supply of electricity-consumption meters. The enthusiastic staff will show you how the alarm system of the barbed-wire fence between Hungary and Austria once worked. There's also a display on the nesting platforms that the electric company kindly builds for storks, so they won't try to nest on the wires and electrocute themselves.
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Dreher Brewery & Beer Museum
Budapest’s – and Hungary’s – largest beer maker has a museum at its brewery where you can look at displays of brewing and bottling over the centuries. If you can muster up a group of at least 10, you can take a 1½-hour ‘Beer Voyage’ (adult/senior & student 1300/650Ft), which includes a tour, a film and a tasting and must be booked in advance on the internet.
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Postal Museum
The Postal Museum exhibits the contents of original 19th-century post offices – old uniforms and coaches, those big curved brass horns etc – which probably won’t do much for you. But the museum is housed in the seven-room apartment of a wealthy late-19th-century businessman and is among the best-preserved in the city. Even the communal staircase and hallway are richly decorated with fantastic murals.
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Museum of Military History
Loaded with weaponry dating from before the Turkish conquest, the Museum of Military History also does a good job with uniforms, medals, flags and battle-themed fine art. Exhibits focus particularly on the 1848–49 War of Independence and the Hungarian Royal Army under the command of Admiral Miklós Horthy (1918–43). Outside is a mock-up of the electrified fence that once separated Hungary from Austria.
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Golden Eagle Pharmacy Museum
Just north of Dísz tér on the site of Budapest’s first pharmacy (1681), this branch of the Semmelweis Museum of Medical History contains an unusual mixture of displays, including a mock-up of an alchemist’s laboratory with dried bats and tiny crocodiles in jars, and a small ‘spice rack’ used by 17th-century travellers for their daily fixes of curative herbs.
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Vasarely Museum
In the crumbling Zichy Mansion, this museum contains the works of Victor Vasarely (or Vásárhelyi Győző before he emigrated to Paris in 1930), the late ‘father of op art’. The works, especially ones such as Tlinko-F and Ibadan-Pos-, are excellent and fun to watch as they ‘swell’ and ‘move’ around the canvas. We love Ganz.
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Jewish Museum
In an annexe of the Great Synagogue is the Jewish Museum, which contains objects related to religious and everyday life and an interesting handwritten book of the local Burial Society from the 18th century. The Holocaust Memorial Room relates the events of 1944–45, including the infamous mass murder of doctors and patients at a hospital on XII Maros utca south of Moszkva tér in Buda.
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Miksa Róth Memorial House
This fabulous museum exhibits the work of the eponymous art nouveau stained-glass maker (1865–1944) on two floors of the house and workshop where he lived and worked from 1911 until his death. The master’s stunning mosaics are less well known. Roth’s dark brown, almost foreboding, living quarters stand in sharp contrast to the lively, technicolour creations that emerged from his workshop.
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