You can walk into City Park from any side for nothing, so the only thing anyone sells here is a guide to it. Two guided walks treat this park as their subject rather than passing through it on the way somewhere else, and that is the whole of the choice.
They could hardly be less alike. One is an evening walk about Hungarian true crime, 105 minutes long, led by an actor dressed as a detective, in bookings of up to eight people. The other is a daytime walk that starts on Heroes’ Square and carries on into the park, two hours long, with a private option and folk songs from the guide at the end. This page covers both, and the walks the park’s own operator runs.
City Park tours
Budapest: City Park - True Crime of Hungary - Walking Tour
Best for: An evening in the park with a story attached
- 105 minutes
- Live guide in English
- Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead
What’s included and more details
What’s included
- A night-time walking tour of City Park
- An actor-guide in character throughout
- True crime stories from Hungary's past
- Meeting point
- Heroes' Square (Hősök tere, 1146). The guide waits in a detective costume with a black umbrella
- Route
- Heroes' Square, the Budapest Zoo, Széchenyi Thermal Bath, Vajdahunyad Castle and two stops the listing keeps back, ending back on Heroes' Square
- Booking size
- 1 to 8 people
- Runs
- Selected evenings only, so check the calendar for your own dates
- Book by
- At least 1 hour 30 minutes ahead
- Not suitable for
- Children under 16
- Bring
- Clothes for the weather. All of it is outdoors, after dark
Budapest: Heroes' Square-City Park Tour & Music Performance
Best for: Taking in the square and the park together, with a guide to yourself
- 2 hours
- Live guide in English
- Free cancellation up to 24 hours ahead
What’s included and more details
What’s included
- A licensed Hungarian guide
- Exterior visits to the monuments on the route
- A Hungarian folk music performance by your guide
- A tour adjusted to what the group wants to see
- Meeting point
- The equestrian statue of the chieftain Huba, on the Millennium Monument. The guide holds a board with the Maggino logo
- Route
- Heroes' Square, then the park past the Gundel restaurant, the Zoo, Széchenyi Thermal Bath, Vajdahunyad Castle and the House of Music, ending at the Museum of Ethnography
- Choose
- The small-group walk or a private one
- Runs
- Selected days only, so check the calendar for your own dates
- Not included
- Entry tickets to the monuments
- Ages
- Adult from 18, child 17 and under
- Operator
- Maggino - Magic in Hungary
City Park tickets
There are none. City Park is open ground with no gate, no barrier and no ticket desk, so neither partner we work with sells entry, and nobody else does either.
Everything that charges stands inside it, and each place sells its own tickets: the Zoo, Széchenyi Thermal Bath, the Capital Circus, the exhibitions at the House of Music and the Museum of Ethnography, the Hungarian Museum of Agriculture and the two towers at Vajdahunyad Castle, the ice rink in winter, the boats in summer, and the balloon. Our City Park guide lists what each of those gets you.
How they compare
| True crime night walk | Heroes’ Square and City Park walk | |
|---|---|---|
| What it covers | City Park after dark, with a story at each stop | The square first, then the park |
| Time of day | Evening | Daytime |
| Length | 105 minutes | 2 hours |
| Guide | An actor-guide in character, in English | A licensed Hungarian guide, in English |
| Group | Up to 8 people per booking | Small group, or a private option |
| Starts | Heroes’ Square, guide in a detective costume | The Huba statue, on the monument |
| Ends | Back on Heroes’ Square | The Museum of Ethnography |
| Goes inside | Nothing | Nothing. Exteriors only |
| Extras | True crime stories, told in character | Folk songs and a few dance steps from the guide |
| Cancellation | Free up to 24 hours ahead | Free up to 24 hours ahead |
| Best for | An evening you would not otherwise fill | A first proper look at this end of town |
Types of tour
The true crime night walk
This is the only product either partner sells that is about City Park and nothing else, and it is a piece of theatre as much as a tour. The guide is an actor dressed as a detective, and the stories are Hungarian criminal cases that its operator, Legendary Tours Budapest, says are based on real events.
You meet on Heroes’ Square, where the guide waits in costume with a black umbrella, and walk from there into the park: the Zoo, Széchenyi Thermal Bath, Vajdahunyad Castle, and two stops the listing deliberately does not name. All of it is outdoors and all of it is after dark, which is when this park is at its best anyway, with the castle lit across the water.
A booking takes up to eight people, and the latest you can book is an hour and a half before it starts. It is in English only, it ends back on Heroes’ Square, and its listing says it is not suitable for children under 16.
It does not run every night. The calendar decides your date rather than the other way round, so check which evenings are open before you plan around it.
The Heroes' Square and City Park walk
This one starts with the square and gives the park the second half. You meet at the equestrian statue of Huba, one of the seven chieftains at the foot of the Millennium Monument, and walk down past the Gundel restaurant, the Budapest Zoo, Széchenyi Thermal Bath, Vajdahunyad Castle and the House of Music to the Museum of Ethnography, where it ends.
The guide is a licensed Hungarian guide working in English, and the tour finishes with Hungarian folk songs they sing themselves and a few folk dance steps.
You can book it as a small-group walk or a private one.
Be clear about one thing: it goes inside nothing. The listing offers exterior visits to the monuments and puts entry tickets on the not-included list. The museums, the bath and the towers are all separate decisions, made at their own doors.
It does not run every day, so check the calendar before you plan the day round it.
The walks the park runs itself
Városliget Zrt., the company that runs City Park, sells guided walks of its own under the name Liget séták. They are not a partner product and we earn nothing from them, but they are the option that goes deepest into the park itself rather than its famous neighbours.
Tickets are bought online or in person at the House of the Hungarian Millennium and the City Park Visitor Centre during opening hours. Groups run from 9 to 30 people, the routes are accessible, and the walks go ahead in the rain, so dress for it. Dogs cannot come, because the routes go indoors and through the botanical garden. The operator warns that an institution’s own programme can change part of a route on the day.
The languages these run in are not published, so do not assume English without asking when you buy. One walk that is explicitly in English is the Museum of Ethnography’s own 25-minute discovery walk, a short building tour meant for people who want their bearings at the start of a visit or who have very little time.
How to choose
Evening or daytime
If you have a free evening and the park is already on your list, the true crime night walk is the better use of it. The park after dark is lit, quiet and not something most visitors see, and 105 minutes is a comfortable length for it.
If you want to understand what you are looking at in daylight, and the square as well as the park, take the Heroes’ Square and City Park walk instead. It is the one that explains the monument.
Who you are going with
The night walk is not suitable for children under 16, so on a family day the daytime walk is the one to book, and it has a private option if you would rather not share a guide at all.
Both are walks on park paths, and the night walk takes bookings of up to eight people.
What you still have to pay for afterwards
Neither tour includes entry to anything, so budget separately for whatever you want to go into. At Vajdahunyad Castle that means the museum and the towers; at the bath and the Zoo it means ordinary admission.
The free things are worth knowing before you book a guide at all: the House of Music’s ground floor, the Ceramics Space and the Visitor Centre exhibition all cost nothing, and a tour will walk you past rather than into them.
How to book
Open the calendar before you fix a date
Neither tour runs daily, so pick the tour’s date first and build the rest of the day round it.
Book the night walk as late as the same day
The night walk takes bookings up to an hour and a half before it starts, which makes it a genuine same-day option.
Pick your version of the daytime walk
The small-group walk or a private one with the guide to yourselves. You choose as you book.
Find the right meeting point on the square
Both start on Heroes’ Square and neither starts at a museum entrance. For the night walk, look for the guide in a detective costume with a black umbrella. For the daytime walk, find the equestrian statue of Huba among the seven chieftains at the base of the column, and the guide’s board with the Maggino stork on it.
Dress for being outside the whole time
Both tours are entirely in the open air, and the night walk is in the open air in the dark. Neither includes any indoor stop to warm up in.
Insider tips
Take the night walk in the skating season
From about November to the start of March the ice rink is running, and the castle and the park are lit for it. A tour that spends its 105 minutes walking past that is getting the park at its best, and you can stay on afterwards.
The daytime walk doubles up if you have not done the square
Its first half is Heroes’ Square itself, so it suits anyone who has not yet been. If you have already given the square an hour of your own, you are paying for a repeat, and the night walk starts there without dwelling on it.
Buy the park's own walk at the Visitor Centre while you are there
The City Park Visitor Centre sells the Liget séták walks across the counter, and it is in the wing of the Museum of Ethnography facing Heroes’ Square, where most people start anyway. It is also open on a Monday, when the museum behind it is not.