Hegyvidék & Normafa

What it is

The green district — a wedge of wooded hills west of the centre where the city thins out into beech forest, villas and embassy residences. It contains the highest ground in Budapest and, unusually for a capital, a genuine walking-and-picnicking landscape inside the city boundary.

What is here

Normafa, a beech-wooded ridge that functions as the city's back garden: walking paths, a modest ski slope when there is snow, and a cluster of stalls that have been selling *rétes* — strudel — to walkers for generations.

János Hill, at 527 metres the highest point in Budapest, topped by the Elizabeth Lookout. The tower is by Frigyes Schulek, who also designed the Fisherman's Bastion, which shows: it is the same white neo-Romanesque vocabulary, on a hilltop instead of a riverbank. The view takes in the whole city and, on a clear day, well beyond it.

Three historic ways up, and this is the district's real novelty:

• the Cogwheel Railway, running since 1874, climbing from Városmajor to Széchenyi Hill on a rack rail — and it is a scheduled BKK line, so a normal transport ticket covers it;
• the Children's Railway, a narrow-gauge line staffed almost entirely by children aged ten to fourteen, under adult supervision for driving only. It began as a Communist-era Pioneer railway in 1948 and simply kept running;
• the Libegő chairlift from Zugliget up to János Hill, an open two-seater over the treetops.

What it is like

Quiet, affluent and residential. There is no nightlife and very little street life; the point here is trees and views.

Who it suits

Families, walkers, anyone travelling in summer who wants a few degrees off the city heat, and anyone with children who will remember a railway driven by other children.

The practical catch

The Children's Railway and the chairlift both close on certain weekdays and run reduced winter timetables, and they are not covered by an ordinary transport ticket the way the cogwheel is. Check both before you build a day around them — the classic mistake is riding the cogwheel up and finding no way onward.