Downtown highlights

While museums, exhibitions and other cultural features abound, in three days I wouldn't bother - you can see fine art elsewhere too. Here a couple things that are worth walking by.

Walk by the Danube

Danube by night

The cityscape along the Danube is part of the World Heritage - thus I kind of have an obligation to be proud of it. It really is worth checking out, so just walk across any of the central bridges (Lánchíd, Margit híd, Petőfi híd, Szabadság híd) and take a look around. Worth seeing both day and night. By night I would take the BKV boat and go for a roundtrip (see Transportation). The Pest downtown Danube shore features many parks, restaurants and coffee houses, oftentimes street musicians, and is overall very romantic.

The Parliament

The Parliament

The building of the Parliament has also been on all kinds of top-100-buildings-in-the-world kind of lists. It's pretty amazing. It's also pretty on the inside, but it's such a hassle to get in, and then the route you can take is extremely restricted, as if we were guarding the Holy Grail, that I wouldn't bother. Take a walk around, however, that government district is very upscale and nice. To get there, take a metro to Kossuth tér station.

The Basilica

Well, you must have seen a couple of these already, but nevertheless, we have one too. The neighboring streets are very nice, with little parks, good restaurants and bars, definitely a good area to get lost at.

Szent István Bazilika

Hősök tere (literally: Heroes' Square)

A couple tram stations away, but not too far. Take Metro 1 (the yellow, which is also the oldest) to Hősök tere station. The square itself is pretty cool, as well as the two museums on the two side, the Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of hmm, well, crafts? Not sure how to translate this, but anyway, pottery, tapestry, jewellery and the likes. If you walk back a couple stations on Andrássy út, that's a particularly nice street with all the embassy buildings.
Very close are the Zoo, the Grand Circus and Vajdahunyad Castle, either of which are a good program if you have the time.

Vajdahunyad Castle