Heroes’ Square costs nothing to walk onto, so nobody sells a ticket to it. What is sold here is company: a guide who can tell you which of the fourteen figures in the colonnades were put up after 1945, and in place of whom.
Two very different things are on offer. One is a walking tour about this square and City Park and nothing else, two hours on foot, meeting on the monument. The other is a three-hour coach tour of the whole city that stops here on its way down Andrássy Avenue. This page covers both, and says plainly who each one suits.
Heroes' Square tours
Budapest: Heroes' Square-City Park Tour & Music Performance
Best for: Seeing this square and City Park properly, on foot, with a guide
- 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 song 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 City 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
- Operator
- Maggino - Magic in Hungary
Grand City Tour
Best for: A first morning in Budapest, with Heroes' Square as one of the stops
- 3 hours
- Live guide in English, German or Spanish
- Cancel for free until 24 hours before your visit date and get a full refund
What’s included and more details
What’s included
- A professional licensed tour guide
- An air-conditioned vehicle
- Meeting point
- The Cityrama office at Báthory utca 19, 1054 Budapest. Arrive 15 minutes before the start
- On the route
- A short walk in the Castle District, then past the thermal baths and the Zoo to a stop at Heroes' Square, and down Andrássy Avenue past the Opera House and St Stephen's Basilica
- Not included
- Hotel pick-up and drop-off, and entrance fees
- Changes
- You can move the date up to 24 hours before
Heroes’ Square tickets
There are none, and that is the point of the place. The square is public ground at the end of a public road, with no gate, no barrier and no ticket desk, so neither partner we work with sells entry to it. Nobody else does either.
What does cost money stands on either side of it. The Museum of Fine Arts and the Kunsthalle (Műcsarnok) both sell their own admission at their own doors, and both are free entry with the Budapest Card, which is given in person at the ticket desk rather than online and does not skip the queue. Everything else on the square, including the Heroes’ Memorial Stone and every statue on the monument, is yours for nothing.
How they compare
| Heroes’ Square and City Park walk | Grand City Tour | |
|---|---|---|
| What it covers | This square and City Park, in detail | The whole city, with a stop here |
| On foot or by coach | On foot | Air-conditioned coach |
| Length | 2 hours | 3 hours |
| Guide | Live guide in English | Live guide in English, German or Spanish |
| Starts | The Huba statue, on the monument | The Cityrama office, Báthory utca 19 |
| Goes inside | Nothing. Exteriors only | Nothing. Entrance fees are not included |
| Group | Small group, or a private option | Coach group |
| Extras | A folk song performance by the guide | None |
| Cancellation | Free up to 24 hours ahead | Free until 24 hours before, for a full refund |
| Best for | Understanding this square | A first orientation of Budapest |
Types of tour
The Heroes' Square and City Park walk
This is the only product either partner sells that is about Heroes’ Square rather than passing through it. You meet at the equestrian statue of Huba, one of the seven chieftains at the foot of the column, and the first part of the tour is the square itself.
From there it carries on into City Park, past the Gundel restaurant, the Budapest Zoo, Széchenyi Thermal Bath, Vajdahunyad Castle and the House of Music, and ends at the Museum of Ethnography. The guide closes the tour with Hungarian folk songs and a few folk dance steps. The free Gabriel replica in the City Park Visitor Centre is in the same building, so it is an easy one to add afterwards. You can book it as a small-group walk or a private one.
Two things to be clear about. It goes inside nothing. The listing offers exterior visits and puts entry tickets to the monuments on the not-included list, so the museums are a separate decision. And it does not run every day, so the calendar decides your date rather than the other way round.
The Grand City Tour, by coach
Three hours round Budapest with a licensed guide, run by Cityrama, taking in both sides of the river before it reaches this end of town. It stops in the Castle District for a short walk to Matthias Church and Fisherman’s Bastion, with the entrance fees left to you.
Crossing back to Pest, the coach passes the thermal baths and the Budapest Zoo, stops at Heroes’ Square, then runs down Andrássy Avenue into central Pest past the Opera House and St Stephen’s Basilica.
It is the better choice on a first morning, when you want to know where everything is before you decide what to spend a day on. It is the wrong choice if Heroes’ Square is the reason you came, because you get the stop and no more.
The guide works in English, German or Spanish, the coach is air conditioned, and entrance fees to anything on the route are not part of it.
How to choose
Is this square the point, or the city?
If you want to know who the fourteen figures are, which five were swapped in after the war and what the railed slab in front of the monument actually is, take the Heroes’ Square and City Park walk. It is the only guided product that treats this square as the subject.
If you have just arrived and want the shape of Budapest in a morning, take the Grand City Tour instead, and come back to the square on your own afterwards. It is free and it is open at any hour, so there is no cost to a second look.
Which time of day to take
The walking tour starts on open stone with no shade anywhere on the square, and the whole two hours are outdoors, so in July and August take water and a hat. The start time for your date shows when you pick it in the calendar.
The coach tour is indoors and air conditioned between stops, which makes it the more comfortable option in a heatwave, though you are outside at each stop.
Who you are going with
The walking tour has a private option if you would rather not share a guide. The square and the park paths are flat, so the route itself is easy going.
The coach tour suits anyone who would rather not walk for two hours, and its three languages make it the easier one for a group that is not all English speaking.
How to book
Check the walking tour's calendar first
It runs on selected days rather than daily, so open the calendar before you fix anything else around it.
Choose the small-group or the private walk
You pick one as you book: the small-group walk, or a private one with the guide to yourselves.
For the coach tour, note where it starts
It does not leave from Heroes’ Square. The meeting point is the Cityrama office at Báthory utca 19 in central Pest, where you show your voucher before the start, and Cityrama asks you to arrive 15 minutes early.
Turn up at the monument, not the museums
For the walking tour, find the equestrian statue of Huba among the seven chieftains at the base of the column, and look for the guide’s board with the Maggino stork on it. It is on the monument itself, in the middle of the square, not at either museum entrance.