Kerepesi: the mausoleums and the arcades
The great national cemetery — Kossuth's mausoleum, the Arcades, and the parkland calm of the artists' plots. This is a Claude-drafted route awaiting the editor's walk.

1. Fiumei úti main gate
Start at the gate on Fiumei út, a short walk south from Keleti station. Pick up a map at the entrance if there's a kiosk open; the grounds are large and the best plots aren't signposted from the road. Then walk straight in along the main avenue.

2. Kossuth Mausoleum
The largest tomb in the country, built for Lajos Kossuth, leader of the 1848 revolution, and the obvious place to begin. The scale is the statement — a nation building a temple to its own independence. Walk the steps and read the figures around the base.

3. Batthyány Mausoleum
The domed tomb of Lajos Batthyány, the first prime minister, executed in 1849. Quieter than Kossuth's and more affecting for it. Stand inside if it's open; the acoustics alone are worth the pause.

4. Deák Mausoleum
Ferenc Deák, 'the wise man of the nation', who brokered the 1867 compromise with Austria, lies in this neoclassical rotunda. The three great mausoleums sit roughly in a line; the politics of a century are buried within a few hundred metres.

5. The Arcades
The long colonnaded galleries of family vaults — the *árkádsor* — where Budapest's wealthy nineteenth-century families competed in marble. Walk the length slowly. On a weekday morning you'll likely have the whole cool corridor to yourself.

6. The artists' plots
Towards the back the grand tombs give way to the writers, actors and composers, set among old trees gone half to parkland. This is the calm the cemetery is loved for. Wander without a route; the point is to lose the avenue and just walk under the limes.

Kerepesi: the mausoleums and the arcades