Józsefváros and the Palace Quarter
The aristocratic Palotanegyed: mansions, the National Museum garden, and the Ervin Szabó Library. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Magyar Nemzeti Múzeum (Hungarian National Museum)
The great Neoclassical museum where Petőfi is said to have read his revolutionary poem in 1848. You don't have to go in for the collection; the columned portico and the steps are the point. Sit on them as the locals do.

2. Múzeumkert (the Museum Garden)
The walled garden wrapping the museum — gravel paths, busts of writers, and benches under old planes. The quietest green pause in this part of Pest. Loop it slowly before heading into the mansion streets.

3. Pollack Mihály tér
A small square behind the museum framed by the ornate wrought-iron gates and façades of former palaces. Look up at the Festetics and Esterházy frontages; this was the address in nineteenth-century Pest.

4. Bródy Sándor utca
The spine of the *Palotanegyed* (Palace Quarter), lined with the mansions the aristocracy built near the parliament of the day. Walk it for the doorways and the old Italian Institute; the street rewards a slow neck-craning pace.

5. Fővárosi Szabó Ervin Könyvtár (Ervin Szabó Library)
The city library folded into the former Wenckheim Palace — gilded reading rooms, a spiral staircase, chandeliers over the desks. The upper rooms are open to visitors; the most ornate place in Budapest you can simply walk into.

6. Krúdy Gyula utca / the university streets
End in the student quarter around the law faculty, where the grand façades give way to coffee houses and second-hand bookshops. A good place to stop for a coffee before the metro at Rákóczi tér.

Józsefváros and the Palace Quarter