Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Terézváros (Theresa Town, the VI District) is home to the State Opera House, the
Academy of Music and several bar-filled squares, making it one of the most vibrant
partsofthecity.Itsmainthoroughfare,Andrássyút,isBudapest'slongest,grandestav-
enue, running in a perfect straight line for two and a half kilometres up from Erzsébet
tértoHősöktereandtheVárosliget.Withitscoffeehouses,high-endfashionshopsand
grey stone edifices laden with dryads, not to mention the Opera House, the avenue re-
tains something of the style that made it so fashionable in the 1890s, when “Bertie” the
Prince of Wales drove its length in a landau, offering flowers to women as he passed.
To the south of Király utca, the mainly residential
Erzsébetváros
(Elizabeth Town, the VII
District) is composed of nineteenth-century buildings whose bullet-scarred facades, adorned
with fancy wrought-ironwork, conceal a warren of dwellings and leafy courtyards. There is
certainly no better part of Pest to wander around, soaking up the atmosphere. The old build-
ings have made the district popular for a distinctive form of nightlife in the “ruin gardens”:
bars set up in derelict plots or old houses that were previously awaiting development or de-
molition.
This is also the old
Jewish quarter
of the city, which was transformed into a ghetto during
the Nazi occupation and almost wiped out in 1944-45, but has miraculously retained its cul-
tural identity. Its current resurgence owes much to increased contacts with international Je-
wry, and a revival of interest in their religion and roots among the eighty-thousand-strong
Jewish community of Budapest, which had previously tended towards assimilation, reluctant
to proclaim itself in a country where anti-Semitic prejudices linger.
ARRIVAL AND GETTING AROUND
Terézváros
The stretch of Andrássy út up to the Oktogon - where it meets the Nagykörút
(Great Boulevard) - is within walking distance of Deák tér, and the whole length of the
