To the east of the Habsburg Steps entrance to the palace is a bronze statue from 1905 of the Turul, a hawklike totemic bird that supposedly impregnated Emese, grandmother of Árpád, the chief military commander who led the Magyar tribes into the Carpathian Basin in about AD 895. Blame it on the bird.
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
0.42 MILES
Castle Hill is a kilometre-long limestone plateau towering 170m above the Danube. It contains some of Budapest’s most important medieval monuments and…
25.16 MILES
The largest church in Hungary sits on Castle Hill, and its 72m-high central dome can be seen for many kilometres around. The building of the present…
1.02 MILES
Budapest's stunning Great Synagogue is the world's largest Jewish house of worship outside New York City. Built in 1859, the synagogue has both Romantic…
5.26 MILES
Home to more than 40 statues, busts and plaques of Lenin, Marx, Béla Kun and others whose likenesses have ended up on trash heaps elsewhere, Memento Park,…
0.74 MILES
Budapest’s neoclassical cathedral is the most sacred Catholic church in all of Hungary and contains its most revered relic: the mummified right hand of…
1.39 MILES
The headquarters of the dreaded ÁVH secret police houses the disturbing House of Terror, focusing on the crimes and atrocities of Hungary's fascist and…
0.74 MILES
The Eclectic-style Parliament, designed by Imre Steindl and completed in 1902, has 691 sumptuously decorated rooms. You’ll get to see several of these and…
1.2 MILES
The Hungarian National Museum houses the nation’s most important collection of historical relics in an impressive neoclassical building, purpose built in…
Nearby Castle District attractions
0.06 MILES
This imposing neoclassical palace dates back to 1806 and now serves as the official residence of Hungary's president (János Áder who was re-elected to a…
0.07 MILES
The Hungarian National Gallery is an overwhelming collection spread across four floors and four wings of the palace that traces Hungarian art from the…
0.07 MILES
What looks like an elongated concrete doughnut hidden in the bushes off Clark Ádám tér is the 0km stone. All Hungarian roads to and from the capital are…
0.09 MILES
Facing the Royal Palace’s large courtyard to the northwest is the Romantic-style Matthias Fountain, portraying the young king Matthias Corvinus in hunting…
0.1 MILES
To the southeast of the Habsburg Steps entrance, just in front of the Royal Palace, stands a statue of Eugene of Savoy, the Habsburg prince who wiped out…
0.1 MILES
Clark Ádám tér, the square named after the 19th-century Scottish engineer Adam Clark (1811–66) who supervised the building of the Szécheny Chain Bridge …
0.11 MILES
The former Royal Palace has been razed and rebuilt at least half a dozen times over the past seven centuries. Béla IV established a royal residence here…
8. Museum of Applied Hungarian Folk Art
0.14 MILES
This small museum focuses on folk art from around Hungary. There are impressive collections of fine textiles and embroidery, wood and bone carvings,…