Sharks Under a Rainforest Pyramid and a Lake Once Worked for Soda: Nyíregyháza and Sóstó

A Town Refounded by Farmers of the “Bush Farms”

In 1753 Count Ferenc Károlyi invited Slovak-speaking Lutheran settlers, the tirpák, to bring Nyíregyháza, then a near-empty village of about 300 people, back to life. They farmed the land around it in clusters of homesteads called bokortanyák, “bush farms”, and that pattern still shapes the map. In the town’s pedestrian street the names of 36 bush farms and outlying districts are set in bronze into the paving.

The real reason to make the three-hour trip, though, is 6 km out of town at Sóstó. There, a zoo that won Europe’s best-zoo title in its category three times keeps sand tiger sharks in an aquarium you walk through in a glass tunnel, under a rainforest pyramid. The Museum Village next door has a tirpák farmstead among more than 30 rebuilt buildings, and the 1911 bathhouse and the year-round Aquarius bath stand on a lake once worked for soda. Trains run direct from Budapest every hour, so a long day works. One night is better, and the catch is the season: from November the village museum closes at 16:00 and in December its houses close.

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

📋 At a Glance

📍 Where	Nyíregyháza, in northeast Hungary, 270 km from Budapest by rail; Sóstó is 6 km north of the center (Google Maps)
🚆 Getting there	Direct InterCity from Budapest-Nyugati or Keleti, about 3 hours 5 minutes
💰 Train fare	4,430 Ft one way, plus a 650 Ft seat reservation that is required
🎟️ Core tickets	Zoo 8,000 Ft, Museum Village 2,800 Ft, Aquarius 7,600 Ft on weekdays
🛏️ Best as	One night at Sóstó, or a long day for the zoo and the bath
🚫 Skip if	You want the Museum Village houses in December

The Zoo at Sóstó

The Nyíregyháza Zoo (Nyíregyházi Állatpark) spreads across 35 hectares of oak forest and keeps about 600 species. It won the title of Europe’s best zoo in the category for zoos with fewer than 500,000 visitors in 2015, 2018 and 2021. The centerpiece is the Green Pyramid (Zöld Piramis), a three-level, 4,000-square-meter rainforest house modeled on the Indonesian islands. In its basement, the Oceanarium holds a 500,000-liter aquarium with a glass tunnel and sand tiger sharks. The Ice World (Jégvilág) is a polar bear breeding center with a deep pool you watch from below the waterline, and the residents include an Indian rhino, an African elephant and a white tiger.

The zoo is open every day, Monday included. Until 25 October it runs 09:00 to 17:00, with the ticket desk and animal houses closing at 16:30; check its website for the winter hours. An adult ticket is 8,000 Ft (about $24.70), over-70s pay 2,000 Ft, and the ticket covers the indoor houses and the shark feeding, which is on Monday and Friday at 09:30. The seal show takes a winter break from 2 November.

It is a big, walking-heavy park, so give it four hours and wear good shoes. For the 09:30 shark feeding on a Monday or Friday, sleep at Sóstó the night before. In the Maki Erdő on the Tarzan path, ring-tailed lemurs roam among visitors in good weather: you can photograph them, but not feed or touch them. A small paid minibus, the KocsikáZoo, runs on weekends for tired legs.

The Sóstó Museum Village

A short walk from the zoo, the Sóstó Museum Village (Sóstói Múzeumfalu) opened in 1979 as Hungary’s fourth open-air ethnographic museum and was named Museum of the Year in the small-museum category in 1996. More than 30 building groups from the 18th to the 20th century were moved here or rebuilt: a village school, a mill, a barber’s and a photographer’s studio. The one to look for is the tirpák farmstead, a house moved here in 1988 with its stables, pig sty and tobacco barn, the easiest way to see how the bush-farm settlers lived without a bike tour into the countryside.

From 2 to 29 November it is open Tuesday to Sunday, 08:00 to 16:00, with the last tickets at 15:30, and it is closed on Monday. An adult ticket is 2,800 Ft (about $8.60). In December only the grounds are open, on a walking ticket (500 Ft this season), and the houses stay closed. Give it at least an hour, more if you like poking into kitchens and workshops.

Photo: Szemes Elek, CC BY-SA 3.0, cropped and resized.

The Lake, the Park and the Baths

Sóstó means “salt lake”. In King Matthias’s time it was called Igrice, and the salt left on its shore in summer was used to make soda, which earned more than the healing water did. By the early 1800s it had a bathhouse with four oak tubs, where guests soaked in lake water heated in cauldrons. The present bathhouse and the eclectic Krúdy Vigadó were both built in 1911 by István Pazár, and the park has had its current shape since 1912, entered through a carved Székely gate from 1927. The Alpine-style Svájci Lak guesthouse put up the actress Lujza Blaha and the writers Gyula Krúdy and Frigyes Karinthy. Krúdy was born in Nyíregyháza in 1878, and one of his stories is posted on boards along a forest path between the town and the lake.

The Aquarius adventure bath, by the lake, is open every day, 09:00 to 20:00 (hours can change on some holidays), so it is the obvious end to any day here. A complex ticket is 7,600 Ft (about $23.50) on weekdays and 7,900 Ft (about $24.40) on weekends, the three-hour ticket after 17:00 is 5,000 Ft or 5,200 Ft, and after 18:30 entry drops to 2,000 Ft (about $6.20). The outdoor lake beach and the Parkfürdő are summer-only, and the musical fountain in front of the bath stops its shows after 31 October. Our Aquarius guide covers the pools, the slides and the tickets.

The Town Center

If you stay the night, give the center two or three hours. On Kossuth tér the paving carries nine circular mosaics of the solar system, and around it stand the 1872 Town Hall, the Hotel Korona of 1895, where the town’s first electric light was switched on at its opening ball, and the neo-Romanesque Roman Catholic co-cathedral of 1902 to 1904. Its tower lookout is free, open daily 09:00 to 17:00, 94 steps up to 29 meters; if the door is locked, ask the sacristan for the key.

Three more faiths are a short walk away. The Lutheran Great Church of 1784 to 1786 is the oldest building in town, and its 12-bell carillon plays every hour. The Greek Catholic Cathedral of St Nicholas was built from 1895 to 1897, and Pope John Paul II visited the bishop’s palace opposite in 1991. The synagogue Lipót Baumhorn designed in 1923, completed in 1932, is the largest working synagogue in the county. Outside services, the Lutheran and Greek Catholic churches can be visited only by prior arrangement.

For a museum, pick one of two. The Greek Catholic Museum shows icons and iconostasis carvings from the 17th and 18th centuries, Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 to 17:00, for 1,800 Ft (about $5.60). The Kállay Collection on Bessenyei tér, built from the collection of Kristóf Kállay, son of Miklós Kállay, prime minister from 1942 to 1944, is open Tuesday to Sunday, 08:00 to 16:00, for 2,000 Ft (about $6.20). The county’s Jósa András Museum is closed for renovation.

Photo: Thaler Tamas, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.

Pairing It With Tokaj or Debrecen

Tokaj is the natural partner. The InterCity from Keleti runs through it, and Tokaj to Nyíregyháza takes 20 minutes by InterCity (950 Ft with the reservation) or about 40 minutes by hourly local train (650 Ft). So you can take the morning train from Keleti to Tokaj, spend the day in the wine town, ride on to Nyíregyháza in the evening, sleep at Sóstó, and go back to Nyugati the next afternoon with no backtracking. Our Tokaj guide covers the cellars and tastings.

Debrecen is 32 minutes away by InterCity (1,230 Ft with the reservation), but it is a full day on its own. Since the Nyugati trains run through it, it fits a three-day loop: Debrecen, a night, Nyíregyháza, a night, Tokaj, and back to Keleti. See our Debrecen guide.

Getting There

• By train from Nyugati: a direct InterCity via Szolnok and Debrecen leaves hourly at 20 past and takes 3 hours 8 minutes. Until 3 November, track work near Monor moves the departure to 55 past and adds about 25 minutes.
• By train from Keleti: a direct InterCity via Miskolc and Tokaj leaves every two hours at 25 past and takes 3 hours 4 minutes.
• Fare: 4,430 Ft (about $13.70) plus a 650 Ft seat reservation, which is required on these trains: 5,080 Ft (about $15.70) one way. Weekend trains fill up with students, so book the seat ahead.
• Back: trains leave Nyíregyháza for Nyugati hourly at 30 past until 20:30, and for Keleti at 29 past on odd hours until 19:29, with two extra CAMPUS trains to Nyugati on Sunday afternoons.
• By coach: there is no direct coach; take the train.
• To Sóstó: city bus 8 (not the 8Y) from the station, about 17 minutes to the zoo stop, and 8 minutes to the center at Kossuth utca. A single is 350 Ft in advance or 500 Ft from the driver, and the 650 Ft Sóstó day ticket, sold in the MÁV and Mobiljegy apps or at a ticket office but not on the bus, covers unlimited rides that day. A local train also runs to the Sóstó halt in 6 minutes for 400 Ft, then it is about a 15-minute walk to the zoo.

For trains and tickets in general, see our guide to traveling Hungary by train.

The Calendar Problem

• Monday: the zoo and Aquarius are open. The Museum Village and the Kállay Collection are closed, and the Greek Catholic Museum is closed on Sunday and Monday.
• November: the Museum Village closes at 16:00, last tickets at 15:30. The zoo’s seal show is off from 2 November.
• December: the Museum Village houses are closed; only the grounds are open on a walking ticket.
• Off season: the lake beach and the Parkfürdő are summer-only, and the musical fountain stops after 31 October.
• The Jósa András Museum is closed for renovation.

A Long Day, Hour by Hour

Time	What	Note
06:20	InterCity from Budapest-Nyugati	From 4 November; arrive Nyíregyháza 09:28
09:40	Bus 8 to the zoo	Sóstó day ticket 650 Ft
10:00	Nyíregyháza Zoo	8,000 Ft, give it four hours
14:15	Sóstó Museum Village	2,800 Ft, last tickets 15:30 in November
15:45	Short lake walk past the Krúdy Vigadó and the Svájci Lak	Free; it is dark by about 16:00 in November
16:30	Aquarius until about 18:45	Weekend day ticket 7,900 Ft; after 17:00 it is 5,200 Ft
19:30	InterCity to Budapest-Nyugati	Bus 8 to the station first; arrives 22:51

With one night: take a mid-morning train, walk the center, climb the co-cathedral tower and see the Greek Catholic Museum, spend the evening in Aquarius and sleep at Sóstó, where the zoo’s own hotels, the Pangea and the Dzsungel, stand next to the park. Give the next morning to the zoo and the early afternoon to the Museum Village, then take an afternoon train back. Or swap the first day for Tokaj, as above.

The Verdict

Come for the tirpák farmstead that tells the town’s founding story and the sharks gliding over your head in the Green Pyramid, and stay for an evening soak by the old soda lake. Take an early train, spend the day at Sóstó, and if you can, add a night and Tokaj. Avoid Mondays for the museums and December for the village houses, and Nyíregyháza is an easy, rewarding three hours from Budapest.

Sources: MÁV ticket shop and journey planner, Nyíregyháza Zoo hours, tickets and feedings, Sóstó Museum Village hours, prices and history, Aquarius hours and prices, Volánbusz Nyíregyháza fares, Kállay Collection, Greek Catholic Museum, Jósa András Museum, Nyíregyháza tourism: Sóstógyógyfürdő, zoo and tower lookout, town walk, churches, tirpák trail, Sóstó forest and musical fountain, MÁVINFORM, all checked 18 October 2026.

Prices are in HUF, which is what you pay at the counter. Converted at 1 USD = 324 HUF, the ECB rate on 15 October 2026. Rates move, so treat the converted figures as indicative.

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