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Margaret Island

A saying has it that "love begins and ends" on Margit sziget (Margaret Island), for this verdant expanse just upriver from the city centre has been a favourite spot for lovers since the nineteenth century, though until 1945 a stiff admission charge deterred the poor. Today it is one of Budapest's most popular recreation grounds, its thermal springs feeding outdoor pools and ritzy spa hotels. The easiest way of getting there is to catch bus #26 (which runs all the way along the island) from either the Nyugati pu. or Árpád híd metro stations in Pest. Alternatively, you can take tram #4 or #6 from Moszkva tér or the Nagykörút to the stop midway across the Margit híd, and walk onto the island via the short linking bridge. Motorists can only approach from the north, via the Árpád híd, at which point they must abandon their vehicles at a paying car park. You can rent bikes at the southern entrance to the island, on the left-hand side - they tend to be rather battered but are good enough to get around the 5km circuit.

The southern part of the island is for chilling out and improving your tan. A huge circular fountain presages the Hajós Alfréd Pool (daily 6am-6pm; 500Ft; popularly known as the "Sport"), named after the winner of the 100m and 1200m swimming races at the 1896 Olympics, who was also the architect who designed the indoor pool - though the main attractions are the all-season outdoor 50m pool and the fresh pastries at the buffet. Ten minutes' walk further on, a ruined thirteenth-century Franciscan church and a rose garden lie across the road from the Palatinus Strand (May to mid-Sept daily 8am-7pm; 600Ft), which can hold as many as ten thousand people at a time in seven open-air thermal pools, complete with a water chute, wave machine and segregated terraces for nude sunbathing.

Further north, an outdoor theatre , by a conspicuous water tower, hosts plays, operas, concerts and fashion shows over summer, and is a handy spot for a beer or snack. To the east stands a ruined Dominican church and convent ; Béla IV vowed to bring his daughter up as a nun here if Hungary survived the Mongol invasion, and duly confined 9-year-old Princess Margit when it did. She apparently made the best of it, acquiring a reputation for curing lepers and other saintly deeds, as well as for not washing above her ankles. Beatification followed her death in 1271, and a belated canonization in 1943. The convent fell into ruin during the Turkish occupation, when the island was turned into a harem.

A short way northeast of the water tower is a Premonstratensian Chapel whose Romanesque tower dates back to the twelfth century, when the order first established a monastery on the island; its fifteenth-century bell is one of the oldest in Hungary. Beyond lie two spa hotels catering to wealthy northern Europeans with a yen to be pampered: the Ramada Grand , a refurbished fin-de-siècle pile; and the equally well-equipped Thermal Hotel , built in the 1970s.

 

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