Budapest for FREE

Budapest is a bargain destination, though you still have to pay for just about everything. That doesn’t mean you’ll be reaching for your wallet from morning till night – the following top attractions and activities won’t cost you a forint. For the most part they involve being on the outside looking in, but wonders you’re about to behold and for free!

St Gerhard Statue at Gellért Hill overlooking the Danube. Image by Maremagnum / Getty Images

Gellért Hill

The Citadella, the mighty fortress atop Gellért Hill which never did battle, is currently closed to the public, but the Liberty Monument, the lovely lady with a palm frond in her outstretched arms, proclaiming freedom throughout the city, still stands guard on Gellért Hill and the million-dollar views of the Royal Palace on Castle Hill, the Parliament and the Danube River cost nothing.

Margaret Island

This green oasis in the middle of the Danube boasts a couple of large swimming complexes, a thermal spa, gardens and shaded walkways and is a delightful place to head on a hot afternoon. Even better, its key sights — the ruins of a Franciscan church and monastery, a Dominican convent with the grave of St Margaret and the 12th-century Romanesque Premonstratensian church dedicated to St Michael are all open to the public free of charge.

Margaret Island on the Danube in Budapest. Image by Jonathan Smith / Lonely Planet Images / Getty Images

Nagycsarnok

The ‘Great Market’ is Budapest’s biggest food market. Though it has been attracting a lot more tourists since its renovation almost a decade ago, plenty of locals come here for fruit, vegetables, deli items, fish and meat. Good deals (at a fraction of what they would cost on nearby Váci utca) include shrink-wrapped and potted foie gras and goose-liver pâté, dried mushrooms, garlands of dried paprika and bags and tins of paprika powder. Head upstairs for Hungarian folk costumes, dolls, painted eggs, embroidered tablecloths and carved hunting knives.

City Park

Pest’s green lung, City Park is an open space to the east measuring almost a square kilometre. Most of its numerous attractions, including museums, galleries, the Capital Circus of Budapest, Budapest Zoo and the Széchenyi Baths, charge an entry fee. But you are free to stroll along the park’s shady paths, past important monuments like that of a hooded Anonymous, the nameless unknown chronicler at the 12th-century court who wrote a history of the early Magyars. The unofficial entrance to the park is Heroes’ Square, the city’s largest, with its landmark Millenary Monument (1896), marking the 1000th anniversary of the Magyar conquest of the Carpathian Basin.

Heroes’ Square in Budapest’s City Park. Image by David Clapp / Getty Images

Basilica of St Stephen

The Basilica of St Stephen is the most important Catholic church in all of Hungary. You have to pay to visit the treasury of ecclesiastical objects on the 2nd floor and ascend two lifts and 40 steps to the 96m-high dome, which offers some of the best views in the city, but the church proper doesn’t change an entry fee. Your destination should be the Holy Right Chapel behind the main altar and to the left. It contains the Holy Right (also known as the Holy Dexter), the mummified right hand of St Stephen and an object of great devotion.

Castle Hill

You really can’t say you’ve visited Budapest until you make your way up to Castle Hill. The Sikló funicular from Clark Ádám tér and the elevator from Dózsa György tér, which will whisk you up to the National Széchenyi Library, both charge a fee. Instead, walk up the Royal Steps (Király lépcső) which lead northwest from Clark Ádám tér, or the wide staircase which goes to the southern end of the Royal Palace from Szarvas tér. While you need a ticket for the museums housed inside the Royal Palace, you can stroll around its grounds and gardens for free, enjoying the wonderful monuments and the awesome views.