Palace Quarter & Józsefváros

What it is

The inner half of District VIII. Palotanegyed — the Palace Quarter — is the stretch between the Grand Boulevard and the Museum Garden, built up in the late nineteenth century with town palaces for the aristocracy who came to Pest for the parliamentary season.

District VIII as a whole has a reputation the inner half does not deserve. The character changes noticeably as you move outward past the boulevard, and the difference can be one street.

What is here

The Hungarian National Museum and its garden. Twenty-odd surviving aristocratic palaces, several now used by universities. The Ervin Szabó Library, housed in the Wenckheim Palace, whose reading rooms are open to anyone who buys a day ticket and are among the most beautiful interiors in the city. The Natural History Museum is further out.

What it is like

Grand architecture at street level, student life underneath it — several university faculties are here, which keeps the cafés cheap and the pavements busy on weekdays.

It is quieter than District VII and considerably cheaper than District V for what is, in walking terms, a very similar location.

Practical

The M3 metro runs along its western edge and trams 4 and 6 along the Grand Boulevard.

Worth knowing when booking: check where the address actually sits relative to the Grand Boulevard. Inside it, you are in the Palace Quarter. Well outside it, you are somewhere else entirely, and the walk home at night is a different proposition.