Multi - coloured Pest
Concert Hall of Great Musicians
Two buildings that dominate the southern stretch of the Danube embankment on the Pest side are the one-time Customs House built in the 1870's (now the Economics University ) and, behind it, the capital's largest covered market. When first opened in the 1890's a network of tunnels enabled incoming barges to unload their goods directly under the market floor.
Today the Market Hall houses the city's biggest, best and richest selection of merchandise, including everything from fresh vegetables to meat and spices. It has several times appeared in world news broadcasts, as it is a favourite place for celebrity guests to be filmed buying garlic or red paprika pepper.
The City's Longest Pedestrianised Street
Just like Paris , Budapest is proud of two of its old, iron framed railway stations: the Eastern Station (Keleti), and the Western (Nyugati) built in 1877. The latter is one of the most striking buildings along the Great Boulevard , and has a connection with Paris and the Eiffel Tower . The tender to build the Western Station was won by the Eiffel Company, and much of the ironwork was cast in Paris .
The Biggest Church and the Heaviest Bell
A short walk along the Inner Ring Road brings you to Dohány utca and Europe 's largest working synagogue. The first Jewish merchants settled in Buda in the middle of the thirteenth century. In the eighteenth century a Jewish community, along with craftshops and workshops, was established in Óbuda. A gradual migration into Pest started a few years later and in the mid-nineteenth century the period's largest synagogue was built to a Romantic-Moorish design on the edge of the new Jewish quarter. It can seat three thousand people, and features cast iron columns and arches which at the time of its construction were very much a new innovation.
Concerts are regularly held in the Synagogue, and the adjacent building houses the world renowned National Jewish Museum. This covers the history of Hungarian Jewry, has displays of ritual artefacts and everyday objects, and commemorates the Holocaust. There are kosher shops and restaurants in the neighbourhood.
Hungary 's First and Largest Public Collection
Budapest 's City Park is reputed to have been the world's first public park open to all. In 1808 the Emperor ordered a Hungarian "National Garden " to be laid out, including the planting of seven thousand trees.
Today's City Park contains amusement areas, sports grounds, foot and cycle paths, as well as the hundred-year old Széchenyi Thermal Baths (Pest 's first), popular for swimming, relaxation and treatments. There is also the Transport Museum, containing rare model locomotives, the Petőfi Hall, home to rock concerts, and at weekends one of the city's most interesting flea markets, where goods on sale range from interesting old books and antique painted plates to valuable old toys.
In summer there is boating on City Park Lake . In winter, it is transformed into Central Europe 's largest artificial skating rink.
Model comes to life
Budapest Zoo is a pleasant day out for all the family. It first opened in 1866 and has in the last decade undergone significant modernisation. Some of its buildings are particularly fine examples of Hungarian art nouveau. Five hundred types of animal and 4,000 different plants live within its 250 acres. The animal petting area is especially popular with children - they can come into close contact with and feed the goats, small cows and sheep.
Prize-Winning Merry-go-Round
Spectacles and curios were already being paraded in the City Park in the middle of the nineteenth century, and travelling circuses regularly set up their big top here. Budapest 's own permanent circus settled here in 1891.
The adjacent Fun Fair is a real meeting of antique and state of the art technology. There are gentle rides on the Ferris wheels and, for the brave, there are fast, spinning, hair-raising rides on the roller-coasters. The hundred year-old merry-go-round, recently awarded the European Nostra Prize, and the two-thirds of a mile-long wooden framed switchback with nine peaks (now a listed monument) have a charming old-world atmosphere to them. There is an exhibition about the history of the Fun Fair in the departure building.
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