Szentendre

Szentendre is the easiest and most charming day trip from Budapest, a small Baroque town on the west bank of the Danube, just north of the city, at the southern gateway to the Danube Bend. Its character comes from two waves of settlers. At the end of the seventeenth century, Serbian refugees fleeing the Ottoman wars settled here and built a town of merchants' houses and Orthodox churches, whose onion-domed and Baroque spires still define the skyline; several of the churches can be visited, among them the Blagoveštenska church on the main square and the Serbian Orthodox cathedral, whose grounds hold a museum of ecclesiastical art. In the twentieth century, painters discovered the town's light and lanes and founded an artists' colony, and Szentendre has been a town of artists ever since, with more museums and galleries than you would expect for its size. The best known is the collection of the ceramicist Margit Kovács, whose expressive figures of women, saints and village life are among the most loved works of Hungarian art. The heart of the town is Fő tér, the sloping main square, with its memorial cross and colourful houses, and from it a web of steep, cobbled lanes climbs to the hilltop church, where a terrace gives views over the red roofs to the river. Down on the Danube promenade, cafés and restaurants line the water. The town also has a marzipan museum, plenty of craft and souvenir shops, and good restaurants. A few kilometres outside the centre, the Hungarian Open Air Museum, known as the Skanzen, reconstructs villages from every region of historic Hungary, with farmhouses, churches, windmills and craft demonstrations, and is one of the best family days out near Budapest. Wandering the town is free; museums charge modest entry fees.

Getting there: take the H5 HÉV suburban railway from Batthyány tér in Buda, which takes about forty minutes to Szentendre, the end of the line. Budapest public transport passes and tickets are valid only to the city boundary, so you need a supplementary ticket for the section beyond it; buy it before you board. In summer, boats sometimes run up the Danube from the centre, but services depend on the season and the river level and have been suspended during low water, so check before you plan around one. By car, the town is about half an hour away, with paid parking near the centre.

How to spend the day: arrive in the morning, before the tour buses, and climb straight up to the hilltop church for the view. Then wander down through the lanes to Fő tér, visit one of the Serbian churches and the Margit Kovács collection, and have lunch, ideally at a riverside table. In the afternoon, either browse the galleries and shops or take the local bus out to the Skanzen, which needs at least two or three hours on its own. If you want to see more of the Danube Bend, Visegrád is a short bus ride further north.

Know the trade-offs. Szentendre is very popular and can be crowded on summer weekends, and the main lanes are lined with souvenir shops; step a street or two away for quieter corners. Many museums close on Mondays, and some have shorter hours in winter. Still, on a spring or autumn weekday, it is a delightful contrast to the capital. Stay for the late afternoon if you can: once the day-trippers leave, the lanes empty, the light softens on the painted facades, and the riverside promenade becomes a quiet place for an early dinner before the train back.