Jewish Quarter & ruin bars

What it is

District VII, Erzsébetváros — the old Jewish quarter of Pest and, since the early 2000s, the centre of the city's nightlife.

Those two facts sit uneasily together and it is worth knowing both. This was one of the densest neighbourhoods in Europe before the war; in 1944 it became the Budapest ghetto. Much of it never recovered afterwards, and the derelict courtyard buildings that stood empty for decades are precisely the ones the ruin bars later occupied.

What is here

The Dohány Street Synagogue, the largest in Europe, with the memorial garden and mass grave behind it. Rumbach Street Synagogue and Kazinczy Street Synagogue. Szimpla Kert, the first ruin bar, and a dozen more within a few streets. Kazinczy utca and Gozsdu udvar are the two densest strips of bars.

What it is like

The busiest, cheapest and most enjoyable of the central districts, and the loudest by a wide margin. Bars fill from about ten and run until four; the courtyards amplify sound upwards.

By day it is a completely different place — quiet streets, street art, small cafés, and the synagogues.

Practical

The specific thing to check before booking a room here: which way it faces. A courtyard-facing room in this district can be unusable until the early morning, and the listing will not say so. A street-facing room on a side street is generally fine.

Never accept an invitation into a bar from someone who approaches you on the street. The inflated-bill scam operates here more than anywhere.