Busójárás in Mohács: Sunday Draws the Crowd, Tuesday Burns the Coffin
On this page
- What Is Busójárás, and When Is It?
- 📋 At a Glance
- The Date Moves Every Year. Here Is How to Find It.
- Did the Busós Really Scare Off the Turks?
- What Happens on Each of the Six Days?
- Why Tuesday Is Worth the Extra Night
- What the Masks Are Actually Made Of
- How Do You Get to Mohács From Budapest?
- The coach, and it is the right answer
- The train, with a change at Pécs
- Driving, and the ferry trick
- What Does It Cost?
- What Nobody Tells You About Standing in That Crowd
- Where to Stay if You Are Staying
- The Verdict
- 📱 Been to Busójárás?
- Related Articles
What Is Busójárás, and When Is It?
Busójárás is a six-day masked carnival in Mohács, on the Danube in southern Hungary, and it has no fixed date. It ends on Húshagyókedd, Shrove Tuesday, and the organizer pins the whole thing to the first full moon after the spring equinox (mohacsibusojaras.hu, checked August 2026). Carnival Sunday is the peak, when more than 500 masked busós cross the river in rowboats and parade into the main square. Shrove Tuesday is the ending, when a coffin standing for winter is burned. UNESCO inscribed the custom in 2009 and Hungary lists it as a Hungarikum. The last edition the organizer published ran 12 to 17 February 2026.
From Budapest it is a 2h50 non-stop coach from Népliget, or an InterCity to Pécs and a change onto a local train. One free day means Carnival Sunday, and it works as a day trip without any heroics. Two nights is the answer if you want Tuesday’s coffin burning too, because Sunday and Tuesday sit two days apart.
📋 At a Glance
| Detail | What to know |
|---|---|
| 📍 Where | Mohács, Baranya county, on the Danube. Everything converges on Széchenyi tér (Google Maps) |
| 📅 When | Six days ending on Shrove Tuesday, which is 47 days before Easter Sunday. Last published edition: 12-17 February 2026 |
| 🚌 Getting there | Volánbusz "Busó-expressz", line 1131, non-stop from Budapest Népliget, 2h50. Seat reservation 300 Ft |
| 🚆 By rail | No direct train. Mecsek InterCity to Pécs every 2 hours, 30-40 min change, then about 1 hour to Mohács |
| 🚗 Driving | 200-210 km, about 2 hours. Park on the Újmohács bank and take the ferry across, which is the organizer's own advice |
| 💰 Cost | Street events, procession and bonfire are free. Indoor workshops from 1,500 Ft |
| 🔥 The two days that matter | Carnival Sunday for the crossing and the parade, Húshagyókedd for the burning of the coffin |
Mohács is a small Danube town that spends most of the year being quiet and then, for six days at the end of Carnival, fills up with wooden masks, sheepskin, rattles and smoke. The custom belongs to the Sokac, the Catholic South Slav minority who have lived here for centuries, and the busó groups are still where the whole thing is passed on.
Busós in horned willow masks and sheepskin coats on Carnival Sunday in Mohács, 23 February 2020. The women in lace masks and folk dress walk in the same procession. Photo by Arkinessa, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized, via Wikimedia Commons.
The Date Moves Every Year. Here Is How to Find It.
Pin Busójárás to a fixed February weekend and sooner or later you will book the wrong one. The festival hangs off the end of Carnival, Carnival hangs off Easter, and Easter is set by the first full moon after the spring equinox. That is the organizer’s own wording, not a folk explanation.
The arithmetic is simple enough to do on a napkin:
- Find Easter Sunday for the year you are traveling.
- Count back 47 days. That is Húshagyókedd, Shrove Tuesday.
- The festival is the six days ending on that Tuesday, starting the Thursday before.
- Carnival Sunday, two days before the Tuesday, is the big one.
Historically the whole thing ran from Carnival Sunday morning to Shrove Tuesday evening. The modern shape stretched it backwards to the last Thursday of Carnival, which is where the six days come from. UNESCO describes it, reasonably, as a six-day carnival in late February.
One practical note. The organizer publishes one edition at a time, and the last one on its site ran 12 to 17 February 2026, Thursday through Tuesday. Work the date out yourself with the rule above, then confirm the running order against mohacsibusojaras.hu once the program goes up.
Did the Busós Really Scare Off the Turks?
The story everybody repeats is that the men of Mohács hid in the marshes across the river, carved terrifying masks, rowed back over in the dark and frightened the Ottoman garrison out of town. It is a wonderful story. The dates do not support it.
Mohács was freed from Ottoman rule in 1687, and significant Sokac settlement in the town began only about ten years later. The people who brought the busó tradition were not there when the Ottomans were. The far likelier explanation, and the one the organizer puts on its own site, is that the Sokac carried the custom with them from their Balkan homeland.
What survives is a spring rite, not a war story: noise, fire and grotesque faces to shove winter out the door. That is a better reason to go than the legend, because it is the thing you actually watch happening.
What Happens on Each of the Six Days?
The six days are not six versions of the same day. They ramp.
| Day | What happens |
|---|---|
| Thursday | Kisfarsang, the small carnival. The children wear the masks |
| Friday and Saturday | Build-up. Stages, a craft market, dance houses, busó groups roaming the streets |
| Sunday (Farsangvasárnap) | The peak. Busós cross the Danube in rowboats, assemble at Kóló tér and parade to the main square. Bonfires and dancing after dark |
| Monday | A quieter program day |
| Tuesday (Húshagyókedd) | Farsangtemetés, the burial of Carnival. A coffin standing for winter is burned on a bonfire in the main square and danced around |
The last published edition ran its Sunday like this: the boat crossing at 12:30, the procession at 14:00, the coffin carried onto the water at 16:30, and the bonfire lit on Széchenyi tér at 17:30. Times shift edition to edition, but the shape of the day has been stable for years, and it is the shape that lets a day trip work at all.
Why Tuesday Is Worth the Extra Night
For most visitors, Busójárás is one Sunday afternoon. That is understandable. Sunday is where the photographs come from: more than 500 busós rowing across the Danube, the mass of masks funneling out of Kóló tér, the square full long before the procession reaches it.
Húshagyókedd is the part that finishes the story. A coffin representing winter is carried out, set on the bonfire in Széchenyi tér and burned, and people dance around it. That is the point of the entire six days, and the crowd watching it is a fraction of Sunday’s.
The coffin lettered “Busójárás 2020” adrift on the Danube at Mohács, 23 February 2020. This is the coffin going onto the water on Carnival Sunday, not the burning in Széchenyi tér on Shrove Tuesday. Photo by Arkinessa, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized, via Wikimedia Commons.
If you only get one day, take Sunday. The scale is the spectacle and there is no substitute for it. But if you are choosing between a long Sunday day trip and two nights in the region, the second night buys you the one part of Busójárás that most visitors go home without seeing. That is the trade, and it is closer than it looks.
What the Masks Are Actually Made Of
Willow. The masks are carved from it and traditionally painted with animal blood, which is where that particular dull red comes from. Behind the face goes a sheepskin hood, and the costume runs to a full sheepskin coat. In one hand a kereplő, the wooden rattle that makes the noise you hear three streets away, or a buzogány, a wooden club.
Carved busó masks on a display rack in Mohács, photographed in February 2006. Finished masks on a stand, not a carver at work. Photo by Qji, CC BY-SA 3.0, resized, via Wikimedia Commons.
Tradition puts the masks on men, and UNESCO’s description records it that way. Around them move the sokac lányok in folk dress and a supporting cast of other masked figures, and groups from Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia and Poland come as guests.
The carving is not a museum exercise. Mask carvers work in the open during the festival, and the craft passes down inside the established busó groups. If you want to watch a mask being made rather than worn, that is one of the better reasons to be in town on a Friday or a Saturday instead of arriving cold on Sunday morning.
How Do You Get to Mohács From Budapest?
There is no direct Budapest to Mohács train. That single fact decides everything else about the journey.
The coach, and it is the right answer
Volánbusz runs the “Busó-expressz” on line 1131 from Budapest Népliget, motorway the whole way, non-stop, 2 hours 50 minutes. A seat reservation is 300 Ft (about €1) and worth buying, because this is a bus full of people going to the same thing you are going to.
It also lands you in the right place. The intercity bus station in Mohács sits about 20 meters from the event area, which on a day when the town center is closed to traffic matters more than it sounds.
On the festival Sunday the useful pair is the 09:35 out of Népliget, arriving 12:25, and the 20:35 back, into Budapest at 23:35. Read those two against the running order above. You arrive minutes before the boat crossing, you are in the square for the procession, and your bus home leaves after the bonfire. Roughly eight hours on the ground, and none of them wasted.
The train, with a change at Pécs
The Mecsek InterCity runs Budapest to Pécs roughly every two hours, and there is a 30 to 40 minute connection onto the Pécs to Mohács “Busó sebesvonat”, which takes about an hour. It is slower than the coach and it has a change in it, but it is the option that lets you build a longer trip: our Pécs day trip guide covers what the city is worth on its own, and it is also the most sensible overnight base for the festival.
Mohács rail station is about a 15 minute walk from the center, so the coach still wins on the last mile.
The ticket to know either way is Magyarország24, the 24-hour national day ticket at 4,999 Ft (about €14). It is valid on MÁV, MÁV-HÉV, GYSEV and Volánbusz intercity services, which covers both routes above, and it excludes BKK travel inside Budapest. For a return trip to the far south of the country on one day, that is the cheapest ticket in the drawer. Our guide to traveling Hungary by train explains how the national passes and reservations fit together.
Driving, and the ferry trick
Mohács is 200 to 210 km from Budapest, about two hours. Then the problem starts, because the festival closes the center and the parking is the real bottleneck, not the drive.
The organizer’s own advice is blunt: do not drive into Mohács. Park on the Újmohács side, the east bank, and take the ferry across. Extra sailings run until 02:00 on the Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday of the festival, so the late crossing back to your car is covered. If you are picking up a car for this, our car rental guide covers vignettes and what the rental desks actually charge.
| Mode | Time each way | What it adds | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| Busó-expressz coach, line 1131 | 2h50, non-stop from Népliget | Seat reservation 300 Ft | The one to take. Drops you 20 m from the event area |
| InterCity to Pécs, then local train | About 2.5 hours to Pécs, 30-40 min change, then about 1 hour | Two legs, one change | Good if Pécs is part of the trip. Station is a 15 min walk out |
| Car | About 2 hours, 200-210 km | Motorway vignette, plus the parking problem | Park at Újmohács and ferry in. Do not drive into the center |
What Does It Cost?
Less than the scale of the thing suggests. The street events, the procession, the stage programs, the dance houses and the bonfire are free, and the paid part of Busójárás is a short list of indoor sessions and the museums.
| What | Price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Street events, procession, bonfire | Free | The parts most people come for |
| MesterPont craft workshop | 1,500 Ft (about €4) | Indoor session |
| Interactive children’s carnival session | 2,000 Ft (about €5) per child | Accompanying adults free |
| Museums | Normal admission | Priced as usual, not festival-priced |
| Volánbusz seat reservation | 300 Ft (about €1) | Strongly recommended on the Busó-expressz |
| Magyarország24 day ticket | 4,999 Ft (about €14) | 24 hours, MÁV, MÁV-HÉV, GYSEV and Volánbusz intercity. Not valid on BKK |
Prices are in HUF, which is what you pay at the counter. Converted at 1 EUR = 364 HUF, the ECB rate on 31 July 2026. Rates move, so treat the converted figures as indicative.
Two of those numbers are worth reading together. A day ticket at 4,999 Ft covers the coach down and the coach back, and the entire main event costs nothing on top of it. For a full day of a UNESCO-listed carnival, that is an absurd price, and it is the strongest single argument for the day trip.
What Nobody Tells You About Standing in That Crowd
The organizer publishes safety notes, and they are more useful than the usual festival boilerplate because they describe things that genuinely go wrong here.
The masks badly restrict vision. A busó in full costume can see a narrow slice of the world in front of him and not much else, and he is carrying a club or a rattle and moving with a group. Keep small children close and within reach. Prams are a bad idea on the parade route. And keep two lanes clear where the procession passes, because the busós need the room and the crowd tends to forget that until the first group arrives.
The bonfire throws embers. This is stated plainly by the organizer and it is not a formality: ash and sparks off the fire can set clothing alight. Stand back further than feels necessary, keep synthetic coats out of the front row, and do not put a child on your shoulders at the edge of the fire.
The riverbank is a slip hazard. February, mud, a sloping bank and a crowd trying to photograph boats. The organizer asks people not to crowd the water’s edge at the crossing, and the request is worth taking seriously.
And, again, do not drive in. The center is closed, the parking is not there, and the ferry from Újmohács exists precisely so you do not try.
Dress for a Hungarian February standing still outdoors, which is colder than a Hungarian February walking around. The whole thing happens outside.
Where to Stay if You Are Staying
Mohács is small. Roughly 50 properties in total, and for these six days they sell out, so the town is realistic only if you book a long way ahead.
The workable bases all sit within about 50 km:
- Pécs has the best transport links and by far the biggest choice of rooms, and it gives you a second city worth a day in its own right.
- Baja and Szekszárd are the closest of the alternatives, with buses into Mohács roughly every three hours during the day, about an hour each way.
- Villány is wine country, and if you are already staying two nights in February, that is not the worst way to spend the Monday between Sunday and Tuesday.
- Harkány and Siklós put a thermal bath and a castle inside the same trip.
If the plan is Sunday and Tuesday both, base yourself somewhere with rooms and connections rather than somewhere with atmosphere. Monday is a quiet program day in Mohács, and it is the day to be somewhere else.
The Verdict
Busójárás is one of the few things in Hungary that fully justifies close to six hours on a coach for a single afternoon. The coach runs non-stop, the arithmetic works, and the main event costs nothing. Take the 09:35 on Carnival Sunday, take the 20:35 home, and you will have seen the crossing, the procession and the fire.
Stay over only for a specific reason, and there is exactly one good one: Húshagyókedd. If the burning of the coffin is what you came for, and it is the part of the festival with the most meaning left in it, then two nights in Pécs with a Monday in between is the shape of the trip. Anything less and you are paying for a hotel to watch the same Sunday everyone else watched.
Work the date out from Easter before you book anything. That is the mistake this festival punishes.
📱 Been to Busójárás?
Timings, bus departures and workshop prices change edition to edition. Tell us what you found on the ground and we fix the page.
Related Articles
Good to know
When is Busójárás in Mohács?
It moves every year, because it is pinned to the end of Carnival rather than to a calendar date. The festival is the six days ending on Húshagyókedd, Shrove Tuesday, and Shrove Tuesday falls 47 days before Easter Sunday. Find Easter, count back 47 days, and the Sunday two days before that Tuesday is the big one. The organizer publishes one edition at a time, and the last one it published ran 12 to 17 February 2026.
How do you get from Budapest to Mohács?
By coach. There is no direct train, so the Volánbusz Busó-expressz on line 1131 leaves Budapest Népliget and runs non-stop down the motorway in about 2 hours 50 minutes, dropping you roughly 20 meters from the event area. Reserve a seat for 300 Ft. The alternative is the Mecsek InterCity to Pécs, which runs roughly every two hours, then a 30 to 40 minute wait for the Pécs to Mohács train, which takes about an hour.
Can you do Busójárás as a day trip from Budapest?
On Carnival Sunday, yes, and comfortably. The 09:35 Busó-expressz out of Népliget reaches Mohács at 12:25, in time for the boat crossing and the procession that follows it. The 20:35 back leaves after the evening bonfire and gets into Budapest at 23:35. That is roughly eight hours on the ground covering the crossing, the parade and the fire.
Do you need a ticket for Busójárás?
Not for the parts most people come for. The street events, the procession, the stage programs, the dance houses and the bonfire are free. A handful of indoor sessions do charge: the MesterPont craft workshop is 1,500 Ft and the interactive children's carnival session is 2,000 Ft per child, with accompanying adults free. The museums charge their usual admission.
Which day of Busójárás should you go on?
Sunday if you want the spectacle, Tuesday if you want the ritual. Carnival Sunday carries the rowboat crossing, the full procession and the evening fires, and it is by a distance the busiest day. Húshagyókedd is the real conclusion, when the coffin is burned in the main square, and it draws a fraction of the Sunday crowd. If you can only pick one, pick Sunday. If you can stay, stay for both.
Did the busó masks really scare off the Turks?
Almost certainly not, and the festival's own organizer says as much. Mohács was freed from Ottoman rule in 1687, and significant Sokac settlement in the town began only about ten years after that, which leaves nobody in the right place at the right time for the legend to work. The likelier explanation is that the Sokac brought the custom with them from their Balkan homeland.
Where should you stay for Busójárás?
Not in Mohács, unless you booked early. The town has roughly 50 properties in total and they sell out for the festival. Pécs has the best transport links and the biggest choice, and Baja, Szekszárd, Villány, Harkány and Siklós all sit within about 50 km. Buses from Szekszárd and Baja into Mohács run roughly every three hours during the day and take about an hour.