Sightseeing is the best with a well-prepared guide, that’s for sure. And if you are not only interested in the city in general, but you would look at it from a certain point of view, focusing on a particular era, style or story, then a thematic sightseeing tour is right for you. One of the biggest organizations that holds such sightseeing is Budapest Beyond, who organises – for example – Little Vatican in Budapest, Art and creation in the 8th district, The Golden Age of the Hungarian Literature, Aristocracy on one side, servants on the other, Secret sights Budapest Downtown and Budapest Palace quarter tours. Another thematic sightseeing tour office is Imagine Budapest, that organizes for example Nightflow Of Budapest, Crime and History in The Buda Castle, Message walls, or the secret language of the decorations of building in Budapest and Historic Pub Crawl Tours. Hosszúlépés has urban adventures like Golden Age Budapest -The glittering years of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, Jewish Roots and Revival - Hungarian Jewish history in a nutshell and Recycling Budapest - Reinventing the City’s Creative Spaces. Budapest Walks has thematic sightseeing tours as Einstand - A literary walk for children visiting the original places of the story of Paul Street Boys, Follow the flag with a hole - Revisit and relive the revolution and the events that had led up to it, using documents of the time, From Abraham to St. Anthony - A religious travel with John Calvin, Moses and Blessed Virgin Mary and The ways of God - From Mithras to Mohammed – a divine tour through historical periods.

Our favourite thematic tours for the next weeks are the following:

Spa throw two millenia - The tradition of bathing in Budapest with a glance at the Roman, the Turkish, and art nouveau baths (February 10)

Remember the question in the movie ‘The Life of Brian’? – “What have the Romans ever done for us? The Spa! – goes the obvious answer for a Hungarian. And indeed! The history of the spa in Budapest is easy to track all the way back to two millennia. The city’s thermal waters, as popular as ever, have been handed over from generation to generation regardless the dominant power or culture.

Beer lovers –everything you have always wanted to know about the tenth district of the City, but were afraid to ask (March 1)

Sándor Rózsa is the Hungarian Robin Hood of the 19th century: he held raids in many parts of the country, followed by the police of the time, always getting away through the system of tunnels under the inns. These tunnels that are a few metres in length are still being showed to visitors. This labyrinth is a system of winding corridors that run for more than 30 km (!!!) and are 4-5 metres wide – this is where Anton Dreher became famous and where Messerschmidt airplanes were later made. If you are interested to find out more about the history of the Kőbánya Pils, and would like to know where the stone lions of the Chain Bridge come from (Kőbánya means Stone Mine), and if you have never heard of the Kőbánya wines, than you can do what Sándor Rózsa cannot anymore: get under the ground and join the tour!

Secret gardens and squares downtown (June 15)

From the street, nothing can be seen, just a battered façade, an obscure gateway, and a massive double door … Do you want to know what is hiding inside? On this tour you will find yourself in a magical world of centuries-old trees, colourful flowers, marble wells and shady benches along the winding paths – green oases in the midst of the concrete jungle, which reveal the harmonious coexistence of man and nature in an urban environment and invite us to rest and to contemplate. These inner gardens and parks squatting among the apartment houses guard the secrets of their onetime residents: they tell us stories of glory and defeat, love and death – and thus make the history of the city living and tangible.