Bartók Béla út is the most interesting street in Buda that tourists never reach, a long boulevard that has quietly turned itself into South Buda's art quarter — galleries, design shops, old coffee houses brought back to life, all strung between a famous bathhouse and a lake.
Start at the Gellért baths, the 1918 Art Nouveau pile at the foot of Gellért Hill, and don't feel you must go in; the entrance hall alone is worth the look. Then walk the boulevard southwest. The galleries and studios cluster around Gárdonyi tér — push at whichever doors are open, because the point of the street is grazing it rather than planning it. Stop for coffee at Hadik or Szatyor, the rival café rooms where Karinthy once held court.
The boulevard lets you down gently at Feneketlen-tó, the lake whose name means bottomless, with the Cistercian Szent Imre church doubled in the water. Loop it once. Then a few steps on to Móricz Zsigmond körtér, where the trams gather and the 19, 47 or 49 carry you back along the Danube.
