Budapest Zoo & Botanical Garden

One of the oldest zoos in the world, opened in 1866 and still on its original site at the edge of the City Park.

The reason to come is not only the animals. Between 1909 and 1912 the zoo was rebuilt with a set of animal houses by Károly Kós and Dezső Zrumeczky that are among the finest surviving works of the Hungarian national-romantic style — a movement that looked to Transylvanian village architecture rather than to Vienna. The Elephant House, with its Zsolnay-tiled dome and minaret-like tower, is the one people photograph. The Palm House was fabricated by the Eiffel company.

The collection was devastated in the siege of 1944–45, when a handful of animals survived out of thousands, and rebuilt from almost nothing afterwards.

It sits immediately next to the Széchenyi Baths and a short walk from Heroes' Square and Vajdahunyad Castle, which makes the City Park corner unusually efficient to visit: a bath, a zoo, a castle and two major museums inside a few hundred metres.

Allow half a day if you have children, and note that the historic buildings are as much of the visit as the enclosures.