Budapest Guide
Józsefváros and Ferencváros
Separated from Erzsébetváros by Rákóczi út, which runs out to Keleti Station, Józsefváros (the VIII District) is an amalgam of high and low life. While the Hungarian National Museum, Eötvös Loránd University and the Szabó Ervin Library on Múzeum körút make for a lively student quarter, its seedier hinterland beyond the Nagykörút district is associated with vice and crime, despite efforts to clean it up. You can wander safely anywhere in Józsefváros by day, but elsewhere stick to main roads and avoid pedestrian underpasses after midnight – particularly around Keleti Station, where Kerepesi Cemetery and the Police History Museum are worth a visit by day.
Üllői út – leading to the airport – marks the boundary of the adjacent Ferencváros (Franz Town, the IX District), once the most solidly working class of the inner city districts. Today, Ráday utca and the backstreets behind the wonderful Great Market Hall on Vámház körút are full of hip restaurants and bars; luxury condos rise where teenage insurgents once fought, and the district's historic far-right sympathies are challenged by a Holocaust Memorial Centre. For culture, there's the Palace of Arts complex by the river, while football fans will want to see Fradi in action at the FTC Stadium, and children enjoy the Natural History Museum.
Transport for the two districts include the red and blue metro lines, trams #4 and #6 along the Nagykörút and tram #2, which runs down the Pest bank of the Danube to the Palace of Arts.