Budapest’s Tiny Hidden Statues: A Walking Guide to the City’s Smallest Secrets

Budapest is famous for its grand statues: Heroes’ Square, the Turul bird, the lions on Chain Bridge. But scattered across the city, easily missed, are smaller street statues and a handful of Kolodko’s tiny bronzes that most tourists walk straight past.

Part art installation, part treasure hunt, and more fun than half the official monuments. Here are the five worth chasing.

The Mini Statues You Need to Find

1. Kermit the Frog (Liberty Square)

A tiny bronze Kermit sits in the park in the middle of Szabadság tér (Liberty Square), facing the little hut at its heart. Mihály Kolodko placed him here in July 2017 as a copy of the frog he had set up that spring in Perechyn, a town in Transcarpathia where people have been eating frog legs since the 19th century. He is small enough that you’ll walk right past unless you’re looking for him.

2. The Balloon Dog (Danube Promenade, Pest side)

Kolodko’s miniature take on Jeff Koons: a little bronze balloon dog chewing a bone, which he called Libidó. It sits on the Danube Corso at the Chain Bridge end, beside the InterContinental hotel, and turned up on 18 May 2019. It is not where the hunt began: his first Budapest piece was Főkukac, the cartoon worm on the Buda embankment at Bem rakpart, in 2016.

Photo: Globetrotter19, CC BY-SA 3.0, resized.

3. The Little Princess (Danube Promenade)

The most photographed of the bunch, and the odd one out: she isn’t a mini statue at all. László Marton made the original, a 50 cm figure, in 1972, modelled on his five-year-old daughter, who played princess in a newspaper crown he made for her. The larger cast went up on the promenade in 1990. The bronze girl in her paper crown sits on the Corso railing near the Vigadó, by the tram stop, her knees polished bright by passing hands.

4. The Fat Policeman (Zrínyi utca)

Another one that isn’t Kolodko: a rotund bronze constable by András Illyés, unveiled on 20 October 2008 on the corner of Zrínyi utca and Október 6. utca, a short walk from St. Stephen’s Basilica. He stands on the pavement with no plinth, in the dress uniform Budapest’s beat constables wore between 1909 and 1945, Zrínyi helmet and all. Locals call him the pocakos rendőr, the potbellied policeman.

5. Columbo and His Dog (Falk Miksa utca)

Yes, the rumpled TV detective has a Budapest statue, dog and all. Géza Fekete made it, and it went up in March 2014 on the corner of Falk Miksa utca and Szent István körút, outside the Kieselbach Gallery. The street name is the joke: Peter Falk played Columbo, and the street is named after Miksa Falk, once editor-in-chief of the Pester Lloyd. Then look behind him. At the foot of the electrical cabinet lies Kolodko’s tiny dead squirrel with a pistol in its paw, titled Ars longa, vita brevis. It has been there since June 2018, which leaves the detective a case right at his back.

Sources: kozterkep.hu entries for Kermit, the Balloon Dog, the Little Princess, the Fat Policeman, Columbo and the squirrel, and hu.wikipedia.org, read on 3 October 2026.

DIY Walking Route

Start: Liberty Square / Szabadság tér (Kermit)
Walk to: St. Stephen’s Basilica, Zrínyi utca (Fat Policeman)
Continue to: Danube promenade near Chain Bridge (Balloon Dog)
Along the promenade: Little Princess
Finish: Falk Miksa utca (Columbo)

Total distance: ~3km
Time: 1-2 hours with stops

The Balloon Dog and the Little Princess both sit on the Danube Promenade. To keep walking by the river, our Danube Promenade walking guide takes the rest of that stretch in order.

Why They Exist

Two of these five are Mihály Kolodko’s work: Kermit and the Balloon Dog, and the squirrel behind Columbo is his too. He plants them without permission, small and low, each a sly nod to Hungarian culture, history, or pop culture. The Little Princess, the Fat Policeman and Columbo came from other sculptors entirely, but they earn their spot on the same walk: easy to miss, and rewarding if you slow down. Finding them feels like discovering secrets the city wants to share but won’t advertise.

Want the complete Kolodko collection? Check out our full guide to hunting Kolodko’s whimsical mini-statues, with locations, stories, and insider tips for finding all of them.

Practical Tips

• Look down. Most sit at ground level or on railings, not at eye height
• Go in the morning. Fewer crowds, better photos
• Use Google Maps. Search “mini statue budapest” or “Kolodko” for exact pins
• They move. A few get relocated, so check the map if one isn’t where you expect

The Verdict

You can see Budapest’s major attractions in two days. These statues give you a reason to look closer, walk slower, and discover a city that rewards curiosity.