Szentendre

Szentendre is the artists' town of the Danube Bend, half an hour upriver from Budapest and the easiest day trip from the capital. Serbian families fleeing the Ottoman advance settled here in the seventeenth century and built seven Orthodox churches, of which several survive with their iconostases intact. The old town is a warren of cobbled lanes in ochre, pink and pale blue, filled with galleries, marzipan shops and museums. The Hungarian Open Air Museum outside town reassembles farmhouses and churches from every region of the country. The town fills with coaches by midday, so early arrivals see it at its best.