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1 Stop 1: The Military Amphitheatre — Aquincumi katonai amfiteátrumThis is the military-town amphitheatre of Aquincum, built in the second century for the settlement serving Rome’s Danube frontier. It is separate from the civilian amphitheatre farther north. Its broad oval and substantial surviving foundations show how public spectacles required a major investment of land and construction beside the military town.
The arena’s unusually large floor also distinguishes it from the image of a small provincial ruin. Spectators were separated from the performance area by the surrounding structure; the remaining entrances and wall lines help explain circulation even though the seating has largely gone. View the outline from the public edge and compare it with the surrounding houses. Roman Óbuda was an extensive urban and military landscape, not a single isolated monument preserved in a park. 2 Stop 2: Goldberger Textile Collection — Goldberger Textilipari GyűjteményFerenc Goldberger established a blue-dyeing workshop here in 1784. The business grew from a family enterprise into a major textile manufacturer, using changes in printing, machinery and marketing to reach much larger markets. The collection occupies part of the former factory, so the building is evidence as well as a container for exhibits.
The firm’s later history includes the persecution of its Jewish owners, wartime destruction and nationalisation. Leo Goldberger, who led its twentieth-century expansion, died in Mauthausen in 1945. An optional museum visit can show how patterned cloth was made and sold; outside, the factory address anchors that history in the town. This stop and the silk-reeling house at the end explain why textiles belong at the centre of Óbuda’s story rather than as a footnote to its Roman remains. 3 Stop 3: Óbuda Synagogue — Óbudai zsinagógaThe synagogue’s large classical portico belongs to a building completed in 1821, replacing an earlier synagogue. Óbuda’s Jewish community had grown under the protection of the Zichy estate, and its religious building expressed a settled community’s place in the town. The columns and pediment give it a public presence quite different from a hidden prayer room.
The Holocaust devastated that community. During the communist period the building lost its religious function and was used for other purposes, including broadcasting. It returned to worship in 2010 and again serves an active congregation. That return matters when looking at the restored frontage: this is a living synagogue with service and security arrangements, rather than simply an architectural relic available for casual entry. 4 Stop 4: Saints Peter and Paul Church — Szent Péter és Pál-templomThe present Saints Peter and Paul Church was built in the eighteenth century under Zichy patronage, replacing an earlier parish church. Its Baroque interior includes sculptural work by Károly Bebo, whose name also appears in the district’s public monuments. Patronage linked the estate, parish and public spaces of the town.
This area also contains traces of medieval Óbuda, but those remains should not be confused with the church standing above them. From outside, the tower and façade tell the eighteenth-century story most clearly. Compare their vertical emphasis with the synagogue’s broad classical portico on Lajos utca. The two buildings show neighbouring religious communities representing themselves through different architectural forms, within a town that was later incorporated into Budapest. 5 Stop 5: Óbuda Reformed Church — Óbudai református templomÓbuda’s Reformed congregation has roots in the sixteenth century, but permission to build its own church came much later. The present church was begun in 1785 and consecrated in 1786, in the period of greater religious toleration under Joseph II. It adds a Protestant chapter to the synagogue and Catholic parish already passed.
The site also overlies parts of medieval Óbuda’s royal and queens’ castle, discovered through archaeology. Those buried remains are different from the visible eighteenth-century church. Nearby, the congregation’s early-twentieth-century parsonage and prayer hall were designed by Károly Kós and Dezső Zrumeczky; later alteration changed that building. The stop rewards attention to both religious rights and the town’s unexpectedly deep foundations, without assuming that either the church or archaeological areas are open. 6 Stop 6: The Flórián tér votive group — Fogadalmi oltárSt Florian stands with St Philip Neri and St Charles Borromeo in a monument associated with the Zichy family and the sculptor Károly Bebo. The figures invoke protection against fire, earthquake and plague. They explain the anxieties of an eighteenth-century town in a place now dominated by twentieth-century roads.
The statues were not always arranged exactly as you see them. Separate elements were grouped in the nineteenth century, damaged during war and later removed during road changes. After restoration, the group returned to Flórián tér in 2012. Its survival is therefore a history of dismantling, storage and reconstruction as well as Baroque devotion. Keep it distinct from the Holy Trinity monument on Szentlélek tér: both respond to danger, but they are separate works with different journeys through the modern city. 7 Stop 7: Szentlélek tér — memory beside the flyoverThe Holy Trinity monument recalls the plague of 1738–39, when epidemic disease shaped the life and religious responses of Óbuda. Its sculptural group was commissioned under Zichy patronage. Read the figures as a public act of thanksgiving and protection, rather than simply an ornament near the transport interchange.
Its current position also tells a modern story. The monument was dismantled during major twentieth-century road works and returned in restored form in 2000. Some of what appears to be a continuous old-town setting has therefore been deliberately recovered after disruptive infrastructure changes. Look between the monument, the surviving low buildings and the bridge approach. The contrast explains how much of historic Óbuda was altered, and why these remaining squares matter beyond their picturesque appearance. 8 Stop 8: Fő tér and Óbuda Town Hall — VárosházaÓbuda joined Pest and Buda in 1873, but it still needed a local administrative centre within the enlarged capital. Elek Barcza designed the present district building, occupied in 1906 after the earlier premises were replaced. Its civic frontage belongs to modern municipal life, even though the square’s low buildings can suggest a much older small town.
The original accommodation ranged from official offices to a library, workers’ club and soup kitchen, showing the breadth of district administration. Outside, look for Harrer Pál, Óbuda’s first mayor, and the seated figure of Szindbád, Gyula Krúdy’s fictional traveller. Real local government and literary memory share the same square. These named features give Fő tér more substance than a general instruction to admire its cobbles and façades. 9 Stop 9: Zichy Palace — Zichy-kastélyThe Zichy family’s eighteenth-century palace stood at the centre of an estate that shaped much of Óbuda’s religious and economic life. Miklós Zichy and his wife Erzsébet Berényi were important patrons of the local churches and monuments encountered on this walk. The palace makes that network of patronage visible as a household and estate headquarters.
Later institutional uses changed the complex, and its former service and residential spaces now accommodate cultural organisations. Museums associated with the site include the Kassák Museum and the Vasarely Museum; each has its own opening and admission arrangements. From the square, distinguish the palace entrance from the surrounding lower buildings. The relatively modest street approach does not reveal the full extent of the complex, and a closed courtyard should not interrupt the outdoor route. 10 Stop 10: The Waiting Women — VárakozókImre Varga’s four umbrella figures, Várakozók, were installed in 1986. Their life-size scale encourages visitors to stand beside them, but their story is less cheerful than a first glance suggests. Varga connected the work with women he had seen waiting in the rain in Paris, including the precarious lives of women working on the street.
The title means people waiting, and the figures’ separation, lowered faces and sheltering umbrellas leave that waiting unresolved. Look at each woman individually rather than using the group only as a backdrop. Their place among old-town buildings gives Óbuda a modern work of public art with an uncomfortable human subject. A short continuation to Varga’s collection links the familiar outdoor sculpture with a much broader artistic practice. 11 Stop 11: Imre Varga Collection — Varga Imre GyűjteményThe Varga Collection brings together studies, models and full-size works by the sculptor whose umbrella figures you have just seen. It offers a useful change from knowing a public artist through one much-photographed monument. Varga worked across portraiture, commemorative sculpture and religious subjects, using different scales and materials.
An optional visit allows comparison between preparatory work and figures intended for public space. Outside, the collection’s address anchors that larger body of work close to Várakozók, rather than sending visitors away with an unexplained artist’s name. The building and garden are operated as a museum, not as an unrestricted extension of the street. The walking route remains on Laktanya utca and continues even when the collection is closed. 12 Stop 12: The Silk-Reeling House — SelyemgombolyítóThe silk-reeling house was established in the 1780s during Joseph II’s effort to develop silk production in Hungary. The Italian specialist Agostino Mazzocato organised the enterprise, with József Tallherr involved in the building’s design. Its oval plan was shaped by production and supervision rather than the conventions of a private house.
Reeling meant drawing fine silk filaments from cocoons to produce raw silk for further processing; it was not the same stage as weaving finished cloth. The enterprise connects Óbuda with a wider state-backed manufacturing programme. Together with the Goldberger factory, it explains the district’s long textile history through two different forms of investment: an imperial industrial initiative and a family business that became a large company. Finish by looking at the curved frontage and paired entrances with that working purpose in mind.