Six days in a country that sits on more thermal water than almost anywhere on earth and built its capital around it: four days in Budapest, two cities on two banks joined into one, then east to Eger, a Baroque town with a siege in its history and red wine in its cellars. See the full itinerary.
From the same hand-researched library as our Hungary itinerary. Last reviewed 2026-08-08.
Budapest
Two cities that merged in 1873 and never quite blended: hilly, royal, quiet Buda on the west bank, and flat, grand, restless Pest on the east. The Danube between them is lined with the kind of nineteenth-century architecture built by a country trying very hard to be taken seriously, and underneath it all is thermal water the Romans and then the Ottomans both bathed in.
1
Hungarian Parliament Building
The third-largest parliament on earth, finished in 1902 in neo-Gothic with 40kg of gold leaf inside, holding the thousand-year-old Holy Crown. Interior visits are guided and timed, and close when the house is sitting.
Budapest
2
Fisherman's Bastion
Seven neo-Romanesque turrets on the castle hill, one for each Magyar tribe that arrived in 895. Upper terraces charge in daylight hours; before 9am and after dusk the whole thing is free and empty.
Budapest
3
St. Stephen's Basilica
Named for Hungary's first king, whose mummified right hand is displayed in a side chapel. The dome walk gives the best rooftop view in Pest.
Budapest
4
Shoes on the Danube Bank
Sixty pairs of iron period shoes on the embankment, marking where Arrow Cross militiamen shot Jewish Hungarians into the river in 1944–45. Small, unmarked by ceremony, and the most affecting thing in the city.
Budapest
Eger
A Baroque town of 60,000 in the northern hills, famous for two things: holding off an Ottoman siege in 1552 with two thousand defenders against a vastly larger army, and making Egri Bikavér, the red blend the story gave its name to. The northernmost Ottoman minaret in Europe still stands a few streets from the castle that beat them.
5
Eger Castle
The fortress that held in 1552, with casemates cut into the rock beneath it and a view over every red roof in town. The siege is a national founding story every Hungarian schoolchild knows.
Eger
6
Eger Minaret
A 40m Ottoman minaret from the 1600s, the northernmost surviving in Europe. Ninety-seven very tight spiral steps; not for anyone uneasy in small spaces.
Eger
7
Eger Basilica
A vast neoclassical cathedral, the second-largest church in Hungary, with organ recitals most days at half eleven in the warmer months.
Eger
Museums, parks, and neighborhoods are on the full Hungary itinerary, sequenced into a realistic day-by-day plan with transport between cities.
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