City Park Budapest (Városliget): How the Park Fits Together, What Is Free, What It Costs
On this page
- 📋 At a Glance
- How the park fits together, from the square inward
- Free and paid, side by side
- Half a day: the free loop plus one ticket
- A full day, without crossing the park twice
- City Park with kids
- Winter or summer, it is a different park
- Getting there
- Food, coffee and toilets
- One more thing above your head
City Park, Városliget in Hungarian, is the free public park that starts behind Heroes’ Square, open around the clock, with the M1 metro stopping at both ends of it. The park costs nothing; the Zoo (5,900 HUF), Széchenyi Bath (13,200 HUF for a standard locker ticket) and the museums inside it are where the money goes, and all of the museums close on Mondays.
That second sentence is the reason a City Park day needs a plan. There is more here than one day can hold, and the ticketed places sit a ten-minute walk apart.
📋 At a Glance
| Detail | What to know |
|---|---|
| 🌳 The park | Free, no gate, open 24 hours |
| 🚇 Getting there | M1 to Hősök tere or Széchenyi fürdő, 500 HUF single ticket |
| ♨️ Széchenyi Bath | Standard locker ticket 13,200 HUF Mon to Thu, open daily from 7:00 (weekends 8:00) |
| 🐘 Zoo | Adult 5,900 HUF, open every day, 9:00 to 17:00 on October weekdays |
| 🎵 House of Music | Exhibition 5,500 HUF, closed Monday |
| 🏛️ Museums | Museum of Fine Arts 5,800 HUF, Museum of Ethnography 4,900 HUF, both closed Monday |
| 🆓 Best free stops | Ethnography roof garden, Vajdahunyad Castle courtyards, the Main Playground |
| ⛸️ Ice rink | Back in November; new-season prices not published yet |
How the park fits together, from the square inward
Think of it as a walk from the city’s front door to its back garden.
Heroes’ Square is the entrance. Stand facing the Millennium Monument from Andrássy út and the Museum of Fine Arts is on your left, the Műcsarnok (Kunsthalle, the big contemporary art hall) on your right. Our Heroes’ Square guide explains who the statues are.
Walk past the monument and the bridge carries you over the lake. One side of it is the Városligeti Műjégpálya, the ice rink in winter and the boating lake in summer, with the rink building on the bank. On the other side, on its island, rises Vajdahunyad Castle, a stage set of Hungarian building styles from Romanesque to Baroque, built for the 1896 millennium. Walking through the courtyards costs nothing. The Agricultural Museum inside does.
Keep going north-east past the castle and the yellow domes of Széchenyi Bath fill the view. Right beside it, along Állatkerti körút, are the Zoo and Gundel, the grand old restaurant at the Zoo’s corner. The Széchenyi fürdő metro stop is in the middle of all three.
The southern side of the park is the new one. The House of Music, with its perforated golden canopy, sits among the trees off Olof Palme sétány. The Main Playground, over 13,000 m², fills the corner near Dózsa György út and Ajtósi Dürer sor.
And on the Dózsa György út edge, close to Heroes’ Square, is the Museum of Ethnography, the building whose grass roof curves up out of the ground. The roof is a public garden, open 24 hours, free, with a view over Heroes’ Square and the park; children need an adult with them. Inside, the collection exhibition with Zoom is 4,900 HUF and the all-in ticket 5,500 HUF, Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 to 18:00.
Free and paid, side by side
| Place | Adult price | Open | Closed |
|---|---|---|---|
| The park, the lake paths, castle courtyards | Free | 24 hours | Never |
| Museum of Ethnography roof garden | Free | 24 hours | Never |
| Main Playground | Free | 8:30 to dusk | Never |
| Széchenyi Bath, locker ticket | 13,200 HUF Mon to Thu (about $41), 14,800 HUF Fri to Sun (about $46), 15,800 HUF on peak days (about $49) | Mon to Thu 7:00 to 20:00, Fri 7:00 to 22:00, Sat and Sun 8:00 to 20:00 | Never |
| Széchenyi Bath, Good Morning locker ticket, entry by 9:00 | 10,500 HUF Mon to Thu (about $33), 11,800 HUF on Fridays only (about $37), not sold on Saturdays, Sundays or peak days | Entry from opening until 9:00 | Never |
| Zoo | 5,900 HUF (about $18); child 2 to 18, 4,200 HUF (about $13) | October: weekdays 9:00 to 17:00, weekends 9:00 to 17:30; November to February 9:00 to 16:00; 24 and 31 December 9:00 to 13:00 | Never |
| House of Music, permanent exhibition | 5,500 HUF (about $17); child 1,750 HUF | Tue to Sun 10:15 to 17:50, Fri to 19:50 | Monday |
| Museum of Fine Arts, permanent collection | 5,800 HUF (about $18) | Tue to Sun 10:00 to 18:00 | Monday |
| Museum of Ethnography, collection and Zoom | 4,900 HUF (about $15) | Tue to Sun 10:00 to 18:00 | Monday |
| Műcsarnok, exhibitions | Priced per exhibition, see mucsarnok.hu | Tue to Sun 10:00 to 18:00, Thu 12:00 to 20:00 | Monday |
| Agricultural Museum, Vajdahunyad Castle | 3,600 HUF (about $11); museum and both towers 5,000 HUF (about $15) | Tue to Sun 10:00 to 17:00 | Monday |
| Ice rink | New-season prices not out yet | From November | Until November |
Prices are in HUF, which is what you pay at the counter. Converted at 1 USD = 323 HUF, the ECB rate on 16 October 2026. Rates move, so treat the converted figures as indicative.
A few rules hide behind those numbers. The Zoo’s last entry is an hour before closing, and with a pre-bought ticket too. Children under 14 need an adult with them there, and under-twos need a 400 HUF baby ticket. A family ticket for two adults and two children is 17,500 HUF (about $54). At Széchenyi the peak days this autumn are 23 to 25 October, and the ticket desk shuts an hour before the bath does. The House of Music exhibition admits its last visitors at 16:15, or 17:45 on Fridays, and the operator warns that weekend slots go fast.
The national holiday on 23 October reshuffles things. The Museum of Fine Arts and the Műcsarnok are closed that day; Széchenyi runs on its Sunday hours, 8:00 to 20:00; the Agricultural Museum stays open. The Műcsarnok is closed again on 1 November.
Source: Zoo prices and hours, Széchenyi prices and hours, House of Music exhibition and hours, Museum of Fine Arts, Museum of Ethnography tickets and roof garden, Műcsarnok, Agricultural Museum prices and hours, ice rink and the Main Playground, all checked 17 October 2026.
Half a day: the free loop plus one ticket
Ride the M1 to Hősök tere and give the square ten minutes. Then walk to the Museum of Ethnography’s roof, a few minutes along Dózsa György út, for the view back over the monument; it costs nothing and is open at any hour. Cross the bridge to Vajdahunyad Castle, wander the courtyards, and pick one ticket for the rest of the afternoon:
- Széchenyi Bath if it is cold or you are tired. Allow three hours.
- The House of Music if it is Tuesday to Sunday and you have booked a slot. The museum plans two to three hours for the exhibition.
- The Museum of Fine Arts if art is the reason you came. From 30 October its ground floor holds the Gauguin exhibition, 7,800 HUF with the permanent collection included.
Then take the M1 back from Széchenyi fürdő.
A full day, without crossing the park twice
Start at the north-east end, because that is where the early openers are. The Zoo opens at 9:00 every day; give it the morning: the first animal houses open at 9:00 and the rest at 10:00. Bring lunch and eat it on the grass (more on that below), walk the lake and the castle in the early afternoon, then finish at Széchenyi, which stays open until 20:00, and until 22:00 on Fridays. That order puts the warm water at the end of the day, where it belongs.
If the Zoo is not your thing, swap it for the Museum of Fine Arts or the House of Music and run the day the other way around, from Heroes’ Square toward the bath.
City Park with kids
The Main Playground is the free answer and a very good one: some fifty pieces of play equipment, a three-story climbing frame shaped like a hot-air balloon, ten in-ground trampolines, and in summer a long winding stream with locks and pumps that children can dam and flood. It opens daily at 8:30 and stays open until dusk. It is fenced, with five gates, and has restrooms with changing space.
The Zoo is the paid one, with the family ticket above and indoor animal houses for a rainy spell. The House of Music children’s ticket is 1,750 HUF. Our family guide to Budapest has more for the days around it.
Winter or summer, it is a different park
In summer the lake is a boating lake, the playground stream is running, and the Zoo stays open until 18:00 on weekdays and 19:00 on weekends from May to August. The grass is the point: bring a blanket, because on a warm weekend the lawns fill with picnics.
In winter the same lake is frozen into the City Park ice rink, one of the largest outdoor rinks in Europe, with the castle as its backdrop. The 2025/26 season ran until 1 March, and the operator says the next one opens in November; check the new prices on mujegpalya.hu before you go. The Zoo shuts at 16:00 from November to February. Széchenyi’s outdoor pools steam in the cold, which is the best argument for going in January.
Getting there
- M1 metro, the yellow line under Andrássy út, from Vörösmarty tér or Deák Ferenc tér. Hősök tere for the square, the two big museums, the lake and the castle; Széchenyi fürdő for the bath, the Zoo and Gundel.
- Trolleybus 72 from Nyugati station stops at Hősök tere, then Állatkert (the Zoo), then Széchenyi fürdő. The Zoo’s access page notes that on busy days BKK recommends the M1 instead, because it carries more people.
- Trolleybuses 75 and 79 run along Dózsa György út and stop at Hősök tere; the 79 starts at Keleti station. The 75’s Zichy Géza utca stop is the one for the House of Music.
A single ticket is 500 HUF, bought before boarding in the BudapestGO app or from a ticket machine, and a 24-hour travelcard is 2,750 HUF (about $8.50). Public transit is the easier choice: the park is being made car-free, and parking is paid all around it.
Source: BKK ticket prices and the routes and stops in BKK’s published timetable data, the Zoo’s access page and the House of Music’s directions, checked 17 October 2026.
Food, coffee and toilets
Bring lunch from the city, or a sandwich and a blanket, and eat on the grass; it is what Budapest families do here on a warm weekend.
For a sit-down meal there are two set pieces. Gundel, at the Zoo’s corner, is the grand old dining room of Budapest; our Gundel guide has the menu and what it costs. Robinson sits on the island in the lake and has been there since 1989, serving lunch 12:00 to 16:00 and dinner 18:00 to 23:00. The House of Music has its own café and restaurant, and the Main Playground has the Balloon Garden café terrace for the parents.
Toilets: the park’s public toilets are paid, unless you have Liget+ membership, which makes them free. The playground has its own restrooms. Inside a museum or the bath you use theirs, so a paid stop doubles as a toilet stop.
Source: Liget Budapest visitor information, Robinson, checked 17 October 2026.
One more thing above your head
The balloon you see hanging over the park is BalloonFly, a tethered helium balloon on Mimosa Hill beside Széchenyi Bath that lifts up to 30 people to 150 meters. It flies only when the weather allows; the day’s flight times are on the Liget Budapest BalloonFly page; check the ticket price there before you go.
For the rest of the museums in the city, ranked by how much of your day each one eats, see Budapest museums worth visiting.
Good to know
Is City Park in Budapest free?
Yes. Városliget is a public park with no gate and no ticket, and you can walk it at any hour. What costs money is what stands inside it: Széchenyi Bath, the Zoo, the House of Music, the Museum of Ethnography, the Museum of Fine Arts on Heroes' Square, the Műcsarnok and the Agricultural Museum in Vajdahunyad Castle. The castle courtyards, the lake paths, the Main Playground and the Museum of Ethnography's roof garden cost nothing.
How much time do you need for City Park?
A walk from Heroes' Square across the lake to Vajdahunyad Castle and back takes about an hour. Add one paid stop and you have a half day: the House of Music exhibition is planned for two to three hours by the museum itself, and Széchenyi Bath easily takes three. Two paid stops, say the Zoo in the morning and the bath in the afternoon, fill a whole day.
Which metro stop is best for City Park?
The M1, the little yellow line under Andrássy út. Get off at Hősök tere for Heroes' Square, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Műcsarnok, the lake and the castle. Get off at Széchenyi fürdő, one stop further, for the bath, the Zoo and Gundel. A single BKK ticket is 500 HUF. Trolleybus 72 from Nyugati station also stops at Hősök tere, at the Zoo and at Széchenyi fürdő.
What can you do in City Park on a Monday?
Everything except the museums. The Museum of Fine Arts, the Museum of Ethnography, the House of Music, the Műcsarnok and the Agricultural Museum all close on Mondays. The Zoo opens every day of the year, Széchenyi Bath opens at 7:00, and the park, the castle courtyards, the roof garden and the playground are open as usual.
Can you skate or go boating on the City Park lake?
Both, depending on the season, and on the same water. In winter the lake becomes the Városligeti Műjégpálya, the big outdoor ice rink; its 2025/26 season closed on 1 March and the operator says the next one starts in November. In the warm months the same operator runs boats on the lake. Prices and dates for both are on mujegpalya.hu.
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Prices checked 2026-10-12. Booking through these links supports the site at no extra cost to you. How this works.