Andrássy Avenue Tours

This is the one guided product whose subject is the street itself. You meet at Szent István tér in front of St Stephen’s Basilica, a few minutes west of where the avenue starts, and walk out along it with a licensed Hungarian guide, who waits at the main entrance with a board showing the provider’s Maggino logo.

The named stops on the route are the Saxlehner Palace, the Opera House, the Drechsler Palace opposite it and the Művész Kávéház, then Nagymező utca, the Liszt Academy, Oktogon, the University of Fine Arts and Kodály körönd, and the walk finishes near Heroes’ Square, where the guide sings Hungarian folk songs and shows a few folk dance steps. The music is part of what is sold, not an extra.

Two things to be clear about. It goes inside nothing, and the listing says entry to buildings is not included, so the Opera House is seen from the pavement like everything else. And it has to be booked at least ten hours ahead, so it is a tomorrow decision rather than a this-morning one. It runs as a small group, or as a private tour if you pick that option.

Two hours round the Pest side on foot and by historic transport, and one leg of it is the Millennium Underground, the line that runs the length of Andrássy Avenue. No other tour here puts you on it.

The route takes in City Park, Vajdahunyad Castle, Heroes’ Square, St Stephen’s Basilica, the Chain Bridge, Shoes on the Danube Bank, the Parliament and the Central Market Hall, and the listing is blunt that these are exterior visits with no entrance anywhere. There is a ride on the riverside tram as well.

It meets outside Anna Cafe at Fővám tér 6, by the Central Market Hall, where the guide waits with a blue, grey or black umbrella.

The fare for the metro and tram legs is not included. You can add tickets when you book or buy them on the tour, and you need none if you already have a 24 or 72-hour travel pass or your own single tickets, or if you are over 65 or under 6 and carry ID.

The walking adds up to about 2 kilometres, and the listing says it is not suitable for wheelchair users or anyone with limited mobility. If the M1 or the tram is not running that day, that leg may be left out. Bookings close ten minutes before departure, which makes it the one here you can decide on over breakfast.

Three hours round Budapest with a licensed guide, run by Cityrama from its own office on Báthory utca. It takes the Danube embankment, stops in the Castle District for a short walk to Matthias Church and Fisherman’s Bastion, crosses Elizabeth Bridge, and passes the Central Market Hall and the Dohány Street Synagogue on the way out to City Park.

Andrássy Avenue is the end of it. After the stop at Heroes’ Square the coach turns down the avenue and drives its full length back into central Pest, past the Opera House and St Stephen’s Basilica. That is roughly the last ten minutes of a three-hour tour, and you see it through a window.

Which makes it the right choice for one kind of visitor and the wrong one for another. If you want the shape of the city on a first morning, or you would rather not walk 2.3 kilometres, it does the job and the coach is air conditioned. If the avenue itself is what you came for, it is not the tour you want. Entrance fees and hotel pick-up are not included.

If you want to know what you are looking at on this street, which palace is which and why the villas start where they do, take the Andrássy Avenue walk. It is the only guided product that treats the avenue as the subject rather than the scenery.

If you have just landed and want to know where everything is before you commit a day to anything, take the Grand City Tour and come back to the avenue on your own. It is free and open at any hour, so a second look costs you nothing.

The avenue walk is two and a half hours on your feet, outdoors, on flat paving the whole way. There is real shade under the trees for most of it and almost none at the Heroes’ Square end, so in July take water and a hat.

The Pest loop breaks the walking up with a metro ride and a tram ride, which makes it the gentler of the two walks and the shorter. The coach tour is the one that asks least of you, with air conditioning between stops.

Both walking tours are guided in English only. The Pest loop adds written translations in other major languages through Google Docs, but the guide speaks English.

The coach tour is sold with a live guide in English, German or Spanish. Whether those run as separate departures or share a coach is not stated, so if that matters, ask when you book.