Andrássy Avenue & M1 Metro

Andrássy Avenue is Budapest's grandest boulevard, stretching 2.5 kilometres from the heart of the city to Heroes' Square, lined with neo-Renaissance mansions, embassies, designer boutiques, and some of the finest architecture in Central Europe. It was built between 1872 and 1885 as Budapest's answer to the Champs-Élysées, and the UNESCO committee agreed it belonged in the same conversation, granting it World Heritage status in 2002.

But the real marvel runs underneath. The Millennium Underground Railway — Metro Line 1, or the Földalatti as Budapestians call it — opened on May 2, 1896, making it continental Europe's oldest underground railway. Only London's Metropolitan line is older globally. The line was built in just under two years using the cut-and-cover method: workers dug a trench along the avenue, built the tunnel, and covered it back up. The original stations, with their decorative tilework and cast-iron details, look almost exactly as they did in 1896.

The avenue changes character as you walk it. The inner stretch near Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út is commercial and busy. The middle section, past the Opera House and the House of Terror at number 60, becomes more residential and leafy. By the time you reach the octagonal Kodály körönd roundabout and continue to Heroes' Square, you are walking through a district of grand villas and diplomatic residences that feels like a different city entirely.

Under communism, the avenue was renamed Népköztársaság útja — People's Republic Avenue — and several of the mansions were subdivided into cramped apartments. After 1989, the original name was restored, and the avenue has since been meticulously maintained as a symbol of Budapest's Belle Époque ambitions.