Heroes' Square

The ceremonial end of Andrássy Avenue, laid out for the millennium celebrations of 1896 and finished, slowly, in 1929.

A colonnade curves in two arcs around a central column topped by the Archangel Gabriel, who according to the founding legend appeared to Stephen I in a dream and offered him the crown. At the base of the column stand the seven Magyar chieftains who led the tribes into the Carpathian Basin, Árpád at the front.

The fourteen figures along the colonnade are where the square gets interesting, because the list has been edited. The left-hand arc originally ended with Habsburg rulers; after 1945 those were removed and replaced with figures from Hungary's independence struggles. A square built to assert a national story has had that story rewritten inside it, in public, and the joins are visible if you know to look.

In front of the column is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Facing each other across the open space are the Museum of Fine Arts and the Kunsthalle, and the City Park begins immediately behind.

It is open, free and floodlit at night. The paving is vast and completely without shade, which matters in August far more than it sounds like it should.