Múzeum körút: the bookshops and the museum garden
The antiquarian bookshops, the National Museum's garden, and the old university quarter up to Astoria. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Kálvin tér
Start at the square where two metro lines cross, named for the Calvinist church on its flank. A busy junction, but the right doorway into the old quarter. Head north onto Múzeum körút with the traffic on your right.

2. Múzeum körút antiquarian shops
The short stretch of *körút* lined with second-hand and antiquarian bookshops — the *antikvárium* trade has clustered here for over a century. Browse one even if you don't read Hungarian; the bindings and old Budapest prints are the draw. Cash still rules in some.

3. Hungarian National Museum
The great neoclassical museum where, by legend, the 1848 revolution was launched from the steps. You don't have to go in to enjoy it — the building and its colonnade read beautifully from the street. The garden is the real find.

4. The Museum Garden
Behind the railings, a quiet nineteenth-century garden of statues and old trees, free to enter. Locals read here on the benches. Slip in for ten minutes; it's the calmest spot on the whole walk and almost nobody photographs it.

5. ELTE university quarter
North and west, the old buildings of Eötvös Loránd University fill the streets behind the museum — lecture halls, the law faculty, students spilling out at the hour. Wander the side streets; the scale drops and the noise with it.

6. Astoria
The walk ends at the crossing named for the grand old hotel on the corner. Look up at the facade, then drop into the M2 below. If you've time, the café inside the hotel is the period piece the corner is named for.

Múzeum körút: the bookshops and the museum garden