Hungarian National Gallery: What to See in Two Hours, Floor by Floor

Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka set out to outshine every sunset ever painted, on a canvas as big as a small room. His Ruins of the Greek Theatre at Taormina hangs in the Hungarian National Gallery, in the former Royal Palace on Buda Castle Hill, and that one painting alone repays the climb.

Around it, four floors tell Hungarian art from the Middle Ages to after 1945. Walk the Gothic halls of painted panels and carved Madonnas, stand in the old throne room among fifteen late Gothic winged altarpieces, due to move to the Museum of Fine Arts building with no date given yet, find Pál Szinyei Merse’s sunlit Picnic in May, which reached Impressionist color on its own, and finish 54 steps above the top floor on the dome terrace, which the ticket includes. Two hours covers the highlights, half of a Castle Hill day, with Fisherman’s Bastion fifteen minutes’ walk north. Come for the paintings, not for royal rooms: the war left only the palace’s shell. And it is closed on Mondays.

An adult ticket to the permanent collection is 5,800 HUF (about $18), dome included. It is open Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 to 18:00, last entry 17:00, at Szent György tér 2.

Paul Colin Hennig firstdorsal.eu, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized, via Wikimedia Commons

📋 At a Glance

📍 Where	1014 Budapest, Szent György tér 2, in the palace on Castle Hill
🕙 Hours	Tuesday to Sunday 10:00-18:00, last entry 17:00, closed Mondays
🎟️ Ticket	Permanent collection 5,800 HUF (about $18), reduced 2,900 HUF
🏛️ Dome	Included with any exhibition ticket, 10:00-17:00, closed in bad weather
⏱️ Time needed	2 hours for the highlights, 3 for everything
🆓 Free days	15 March, 20 August, 23 October, for everyone
💳 Budapest Card	One free entry to the permanent exhibitions
🚌 Getting there	Bus 16 or 216 from Deák Ferenc tér to Dísz tér, or the funicular to Szent György tér

The two-hour route, floor by floor

The palace was gutted in the Second World War and rebuilt inside as a museum, so do not come looking for royal bedrooms; the museum says as much on its own FAQ page. What you get instead is Hungarian art told room by room, and a route that climbs neatly from the Middle Ages to the dome.

Floor	What is there	Do not miss	Give it
Ground floor	Gothic art in Hungary, 1300-1500	Maria Gravida panel (1409), the Toporc Madonna	20 minutes
First floor	Late Gothic winged altarpieces in the former throne room	Master MS, The Visitation (1506)	20 minutes
First floor	19th-century Hungarian art, the Munkácsy rooms	Picnic in May, Women of Eger, The Condemned Cell	35 minutes
Half a flight up	Csontváry cabinet	Ruins of the Greek Theatre at Taormina	10 minutes
Second floor	Modern Times, 1896 to 1945	Golden Age, October, Woman with a Birdcage	20 minutes
Top floor, then 54 steps	The dome	The view in every direction	15 minutes

Ground floor: the Gothic halls

Start where the collection starts. The ground floor of building D holds Gothic panel paintings and wooden sculptures from the medieval Kingdom of Hungary, laid out roughly in date order, and the museum calls it the largest museum collection of its kind. Look for the Maria Gravida panel from Németújvár (1409), a Virgin with a spindle in her hand, and the carved Madonna from the church at Toporc (1320-1330). Most of the wooden figures once stood inside winged altars, which is why so many of them look as if they are waiting for doors to open around them.

First floor: the altarpieces in the old throne room

Take the stairs up and turn into the former throne room of the palace and the two rooms next to it. Fifteen largely complete late Gothic winged altarpieces stand here, most of them from the early sixteenth century and many from churches in today’s Slovakia and Transylvania. In the vestibule hangs The Visitation by Master MS (1506), from the high altar at Selmecbánya, which the museum calls perhaps the best-known medieval panel painting from Hungary. The museum’s own page notes that this late medieval group is due to move to the Museum of Fine Arts building after restoration, with no date given, so it is worth seeing here while it is.

Cézanne’s The Buffet (1877) hangs straight across from here, in the international collection, if you want a five-minute detour.

First floor: Picnic in May and the Munkácsy rooms

Pál Szinyei Merse, Picnic in May (Majális), 1873, oil on canvas, in the Hungarian National Gallery. Public domain, resized, via Wikimedia Commons

The nineteenth-century rooms fill the grandest halls of the main wing. Bertalan Székely’s Women of Eger (1867), the siege of 1552 staged as a struggle between men and women, is in the history-painting corridor. Then one of the icons of Hungarian painting: Pál Szinyei Merse’s Picnic in May (1873), painted in sunlight colors at almost the same moment as the French Impressionists, and independently of them. Until 8 November 2026 it hangs inside Millennium 130, a temporary display in the first-floor nineteenth-century rooms marking the 1896 millennium exhibition, so follow the signs for that.

At the end of the halls, the Munkácsy rooms, rearranged as Variations on Realism, hold The Condemned Cell, Woman Carrying Brushwood (1873) and the lavish Paris Interior (1877).

Half a flight up: Csontváry

Tivadar Csontváry Kosztka, Ruins of the Greek Theatre at Taormina, 1904-1905, in the Hungarian National Gallery. Photo by Szilas, public domain, resized, via Wikimedia Commons

Walk back to the dome hall and climb half a flight to the Csontváry cabinet. Ruins of the Greek Theatre at Taormina covers twenty square meters, and Csontváry meant it to be the most colorful sunset ever painted. Stand well back to take it in.

Second floor: Modern Times

The second floor carries Hungarian art from 1896 to the end of the Second World War. Four stops cover it: János Vaszary’s Golden Age (1898), the emblem of Hungarian Art Nouveau; Károly Ferenczy’s October (1903), a man absorbed in reading in an autumn garden in Nagybánya; József Rippl-Rónai’s Woman with a Birdcage (1892); and Róbert Berény’s Woman Playing the Cello (1928) across the cloister under the dome.

Top floor and the dome

The third floor holds Shifts, the collection after 1945. If you have fifteen minutes left, give them to the dome instead: 54 steps up from the top floor, terraces around the dome and the whole city laid out below. The terraces take 15 people at a time, close at 17:00 and shut in bad weather, so if the sky looks doubtful, go up first and do the floors afterwards.

Source: floors and works from the museum’s Masterpieces tour, Gothic Art, Late Gothic Winged Altarpieces, the Hungarian altarpieces page on the move to the Museum of Fine Arts building, Variations on Realism, 1896 displays and dome pages, read on 17 October 2026.

Arrive by three, not by four

The rooms close from the top down, starting on the third floor at 17:30, and the last entry is 17:00. Arrive at 16:00 and you get about an hour and a half on the move, which is not enough for this building. Come in the morning or by 15:00 at the latest.

You can skip the audio guide. The wall labels are in English throughout, and the guide has less to say on the upper floors. If you want a framework, the museum’s free online mini-tours (40 or 60 minutes) on en.mng.hu are a better companion.

Folding chairs stand ready by the permanent rooms for anyone to borrow, and there are benches along the way. Use them; four floors of a palace add up.

What is on right now

Three temporary shows run in October and November 2026, and two of them are inside the normal ticket.

Exhibition	Where	Dates	Ticket
Art and Spirituality: graphic works by Antoni Tàpies	First floor, FOCUS cabinet	15 September to 22 November 2026	Included in the permanent ticket
1896: Millennium 130 and Nagybánya 130	Permanent-collection rooms, first and second floors	14 March to 8 November 2026	Included in the permanent ticket
Dedicated Ones: Hungarian women artists, 1900-1950	Ground floor, temporary exhibition space	21 October 2026 to 14 February 2027	Separate ticket, hourly time slots

Dedicated Ones is the big one: more than 130 works by sixty women artists, from Valéria Dénes and Noémi Ferenczy to Judit Reigl and Margit Anna, the first show of this size on the subject in a Hungarian museum. A temporary exhibition ticket also gets you into the permanent collection that day. Check the price on the exhibition’s page before you go.

Source: mng.hu exhibitions and the Tàpies and Dedicated Ones pages, read on 17 October 2026.

Tickets, discounts and the free days

Ticket	Price
Permanent collection, adult	5,800 HUF (about $18)
Permanent collection, 50% reduced	2,900 HUF (about $9)
MNG annual pass, unlimited permanent visits for a year	9,000 HUF (about $28)
Audio guide, permanent collection	1,200 HUF (about $3.50)
Children under 6	Free

Prices are in HUF, which is what you pay at the ticket desk. Converted at 1 USD = 323 HUF, the ECB rate on 16 October 2026. Rates move, so treat the converted figures as indicative.

The rules that matter to visitors from abroad:

• The reduced ticket follows age and citizenship, not a student card. It is for EEA and Ukrainian citizens aged 6 to 26 or 62 to 70. A student or pensioner card earns nothing outside those age bands. EEA and Ukrainian citizens over 70 go free.
• The ticket is for one entry on one day, and it covers the cabinet exhibitions and the dome. The audio guide comes in English, German, French, Italian, Hungarian and Chinese.
• Free days: on 15 March, 20 August and 23 October every exhibition is free for everyone, regardless of nationality. On the second Saturday of every month the permanent collection is free for under-26s and up to two adults accompanying a child, for EEA and Ukrainian citizens.
• Free tickets are issued only at the desk, on the day, against the document that proves the right. They cannot be booked online.
• The desk takes cards (Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, American Express, UnionPay) and forint. It does not take foreign currency.
• Buy online on Jegymester if your plans might move. Its tickets can be switched to another time once, before the day. Tickets from the Ligetplusz webshop cannot be changed.
• Budapest Card: the 24, 48, 72, 96 and 120-hour cards include one free entry to the permanent exhibitions, and BKK lists the gallery on every card tier. The 24-hour card is 17,990 HUF (about $55.50), so the gallery alone does not pay for it; our Budapest Card guide does the math for a full day.

Source: permanent exhibition tickets, discounts, ways to buy and accepted payment at mng.hu, and BKK’s Budapest Card page, prices checked 17 October 2026.

Opening hours and the days that break the pattern

Tuesday to Sunday, 10:00 to 18:00. The ticket desk and last entry close at 17:00, pre-bought tickets included, and the rooms begin closing from the third floor at 17:30. The café and the museum shop both run 10:00 to 17:45. Closed on Mondays.

The dates to know for the rest of 2026:

• Tuesday 20 October: opens at 14:00.
• Friday 23 October: national holiday, free entry for everyone, building entry 10:00 to 17:00 in order of arrival, no guided tours or audio guides. Dedicated Ones is free that day too, but only with an online registration for a time slot. The museum warns of queues of one to two hours.
• Sunday 1 November: open as normal, 10:00 to 18:00.
• 24 and 25 December: closed.
• Monday 28 December: open, 10:00 to 18:00.
• 31 December: 10:00 to 16:00, last entry 15:00.
• 1 January 2027: 12:00 to 18:00.

Source: opening hours, holiday opening hours and visiting on 23 October at mng.hu, checked 17 October 2026.

Getting up to the palace

The address is Szent György tér 2, at the top of Castle Hill, and the main entrance is in building C, off the Savoy Terrace facing the Danube. Five ways up:

Bus 16 or 216 from Deák Ferenc tér. Across the Chain Bridge and up to Dísz tér, then a few minutes on foot to the palace. From Széll Kálmán tér on the Buda side, buses 16, 16A and 116 do the same climb. A single BKK ticket is 500 HUF: buy it before you board, in the BudapestGO app or from a ticket machine, because the on-the-spot ticket is sold only on certain vehicles marked with a pictogram.

The funicular. Its upper station is on Szent György tér itself, which makes this the shortest walk of any route. It runs 08:00 to 22:00 from Clark Ádám tér, for 4,500 HUF (about $14) one way and 5,500 HUF (about $17) return. It closes on alternate Mondays for maintenance; the remaining 2026 dates are 2, 16 and 30 November and 14 and 28 December.

Várkert Bazár. From the embankment at Ybl Miklós tér, walk up through the Várkert Bazár gardens and take the escalator to the eastern approach of the palace. The gardens are open 6:00 to 24:00 daily. Our Várkert Bazár guide covers the route in detail.

The Tabán lifts. From Dózsa György tér (bus 5 from Ferenciek tere, or tram 56), take the steps up to the foot of the wall and the lifts to the palace level. The stairs beside the Karakas Pasha Tower are temporarily out of use, so use the lifts if you come from Palota út.

On foot from Clark Ádám tér, up the Royal Steps.

Parking: the museum points drivers to Dózsa György tér, at the foot of the Tabán lifts. Várkert Bazár recommends the Várgarázs 1 garage (Apród utca 1-3), with Várgarázs 2 and 3 on Palota út (numbers 1 and 3) when it is full.

Source: getting here at mng.hu, BKV, Buda Castle Funicular, BKK fares, BKK on-the-spot ticket, Várkert Bazár opening hours and Várkert Bazár parking, checked 17 October 2026.

Cloakroom, bags and photos

The cloakroom is free and compulsory, and these are the bag rules:

• Any bag bigger than 30 × 25 × 15 cm, tote bags included, goes to the cloakroom, measured as you carry it in a template by the door.
• No bag of any size on your back. A small backpack has to be worn on your front or carried in your hand.
• Coats must be worn, dry, not slung over a shoulder. Umbrellas go to the cloakroom.
• No food. Still water only, in a clear bottle of up to 0.5 liters kept in your bag, drunk outside the exhibition rooms.
• Free lockers take valuables, and the cloakroom lends a small shoulder bag for free if you want your things with you.
• Photos and video are allowed with any ticket, without flash, tripod or selfie stick. Some temporary exhibitions restrict this, and say so at the door.
• Drawing is allowed in pencil only, in the permanent rooms.

The cloakroom closes with the building, so collect your coat by 17:50.

Source: visitor rules at mng.hu, read on 17 October 2026.

Café, shop and the small comforts

The museum café sits on the ground floor of building C, at the main entrance off the Savoy Terrace: hot and cold drinks, sandwiches, pogácsa and cakes, 10:00 to 17:45 on opening days. You do not need an exhibition ticket for the café or for the museum shop, which keeps the same hours.

Families get a baby room on the first floor with a changing table and a nursing chair, plus free strollers on loan from the information desk (up to 15 kg). There is a phone-charging locker in the first-floor family rest area. Children under 14 must be with an adult, and under-twos go in a stroller or a front carrier, not on shoulders or backs.

Accessibility

The step-free entrance is not the main door. It is in building B, at the staff entrance off the Hunyadi Courtyard: take the ramp on the right of the arcades and staff will escort you to the exhibitions, with a lift inside the main building. Wheelchairs and rollators are lent for free.

The step-free way up the hill: bus 16 from Széll Kálmán tér or bus 216 from Deák Ferenc tér to the Palota út stop, the Tabán lifts up to the Csikós Courtyard, then the Hauszmann ramp or the lift beside the Stöckl Steps to the Hunyadi Courtyard. In justified cases a car or taxi can get a permit to drive into the Hunyadi Courtyard; write to the museum two or three working days ahead. The dome itself is 54 steps up from the top floor.

For blind and partially sighted visitors there are 3D-printed tactile copies of sculptures on bookable tours, and the Csontváry rest area has sign-language videos and audio descriptions via QR codes. Visitors with a document that shows their disability, plus one companion, enter free.

Source: comfort services, accessible museum and discounts at mng.hu, read on 17 October 2026.

What to put either side of it

The gallery is a half day on a Castle Hill day, not the whole of it.

Fisherman’s Bastion is fifteen minutes’ walk north along the hill, and its terraces cost nothing. Matthias Church stands right behind it with its own ticket. If the weather turns, the Labyrinth of Buda Castle is the underground option a few streets away.

And if you are weighing the gallery against Budapest’s other big collections, our ranking of Budapest museums by time cost puts it next to the Museum of Fine Arts, the other half-day museum in town.