The Synagogue and Other Wonders to See in Budapest

This city of records boasts the largest Hebrew temple in Europe, only surpassed globally by that of New York. The Great Synagogue of Budapest, built in 1859, incorporates elements of Islamic and Byzantine art, and its stunning interior reflects a period of optimism for a Jewish community that, at the time of its construction, was close to half a million individuals.

FOR MORE: Budapest: What to See in the Dazzling Danube City

At its inaugural concert, none other than Franz Liszt played its five-thousand-pipe organ. No one could have suspected then that, eighty years later, the Hungarian fascist party would bomb the temple and later use it as a stable.

A few meters away stands another synagogue, that of Rumbach Street, also neo-Moorish, with an octagonal floor plan modeled after the Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem.

A little further along Kazinczy Street, a third synagogue surprises with its gleaming Art Nouveau interiors. There's no doubt we are in the Jewish Quarter. This is one of the oldest and least altered parts of Budapest, where the popular atmosphere of the old capital is preserved. Abandoned after the war, its decrepit atmosphere has attracted modernity, and it's now a melting pot of alternative businesses, as well as a canvas for large urban art murals. Its ruin bars, located in shabby buildings and hybrid between a cultural center and a bar, draw the most alternative nightlife; Szimpla Kert is its flagship.

This has always been a migrant neighborhood, particularly populated by Jews in the early 20th century. That's why the Nazis established a ghetto here and built a wall to prevent anyone from leaving except towards extermination camps. Along its streets, we find references to this wall, as well as the Raoul Wallenberg Memorial Park behind the Great Synagogue, featuring a unique metal tree that honors the 400,000 Hungarian Jews murdered by the Third Reich.

On Dob Street, right in between the three synagogues, we find one of the neighborhood's most iconic murals, dedicated to the Aragonese diplomat Ángel Sanz Briz, known as the Angel of Budapest, who saved thousands of Jews by granting them Spanish passports during World War II. A Jewish-themed route could explore all these corners, but it would eventually lead far from here, to the Shoes on the Danube Bank Memorial, in memory of the thousands of Jews executed.

But to stick to this route, one must head to Erzsébet Square. It is the large urban park in the city center and has housed the Budapest Ferris Wheel, 60 meters tall, since 2013, overshadowed only by the Parliament and St. Stephen's Basilica. Next to it begins Váci Street, the most iconic and popular street in Budapest: finally, a narrow pedestrian street, bustling, with an eclectic collection of historic facades, crowded with shops and restaurants. It's an ideal place to discover the basics of local street food, whether with a typical sausage with mustard and fermented cabbage or the ubiquitous kürtőskalács, cylindrical pastries cooked over charcoal.

Váci leads to the Great Market Hall of Budapest, the largest and oldest in the city, where gastronomy and architecture create a perfect synergy. It is a huge, colorful, and slender modernist hall, with vertical skylights creating beautiful light and shadow effects. Visiting it is another great capital experience, and although it is increasingly oriented towards tourism with gourmet stalls, its generous dimensions still allow for seeing what and how everyday purchases are made in Budapest; the basement, for example, is a paradise for the pickled vegetables that Hungarians adore.

The market's location, a stone's throw from the Danube docks where boats unloaded their goods, is no coincidence. They did so next to the Liberty Bridge, the second oldest in the city, an elegant cast iron structure erected in 1896 that was also blown up by the Nazis. As we cross it, a colossal palace emerges across the river, housing the elegant Gellért Thermal Baths.

Inside, it's unclear what provides more pleasure, the hydrotherapy or the visual spectacle of its profuse modernist decoration. Russian prisoners who built it during World War I did not enjoy it. Budapest has about 120 springs that provide the city with over 70 million liters of water daily at temperatures ranging from 20 to 80 degrees, making it the world's spa capital. It is believed that its oldest baths occupied this space in the 10th century.

Next to it rises Gellért Hill, at the foot of which extends a network of artificially connected caves transformed into rock chapels. The hill was named after St. Gerard, who played a pivotal role in the Christianization of these lands; at the northern end of the hill stands an imposing statue of the saint over an artificial waterfall.

From the foot of the statue, one can begin the ascent to the citadel that sits at its summit, a space not particularly favored by Hungarians as it symbolizes first Austrian repression and later Soviet control. Ironically, next to it stands the Hungarian Liberty Statue, though of communist imposition.

And suddenly, the reward: a whole day walking in Budapest to discover that the perfect place at the right moment awaited at the end of the path, just when the rosy light of sunset reflects on the waters of the Danube and, on the horizon, the illuminated Parliament and the Chain Bridge overlap, the two most beloved icons of the Hungarian capital.