Pécs doesn't feel like the rest of Hungary, and its people will tell you so. It sits on the warm southern slope of the Mecsek hills, closer to Croatia than to Budapest, with fig trees in the gardens and summers that start early. It has also been several cities in one: the Roman Sopianae, whose painted Christian tombs are now a UNESCO site, the medieval bishop's seat that got Hungary's first university in 1367, an Ottoman town for almost a century and a half, and the home of the Zsolnay family, whose glazed tiles cover many of the roofs you'll look up at.
It's a university town of about 140,000, small enough to walk across in half an hour and lively enough to fill five days, especially once you add the hills behind it and the villages to the south. Villány, Hungary's red wine capital, is 40 minutes away by train, with the castle of Siklós and the spa town of Harkány on the way.
Day one is the main square and the Ottoman city, day two the cathedral quarter, the Roman tombs and the street of museums, day three the Zsolnay Quarter and the Mecsek, day four Siklós and Villány, and day five a slower last day with the lakes at Orfű. More trips, from Mohács and its carnival to Szigetvár's castle, come after day five. For the bigger picture, see our page on Hungary.
Every stop from the plan below, colored by day. Pick a day to see its route.
The sloping main square and the mosque that became a church, the city's new history museum, Hungary's best-preserved mosque, the synagogue and an evening on Király utca.
The four-towered cathedral and its crypt, the painted Roman tombs under the square, the medieval walls and the street of museums, with Csontváry, Vasarely and Zsolnay, before a glass of the local Cirfandli.
The old Zsolnay porcelain factory turned into a culture quarter, the view from the TV tower on Misina and a walk down through Tettye to a Swabian dinner.
A medieval castle that has never been empty, a pilgrimage church on the hill, lunch in Hungary's red wine capital and an afternoon going from cellar to cellar.
Hungarian modern art, lángos at the market hall, an afternoon by the lakes where Pécs goes to swim, and a farewell dinner with fish soup and paprika chicken.
Everything today is within ten minutes' walk of Széchenyi Square. The mosque church is closed to visitors during mass, so do it early. The synagogue is open only from May to October, so out of season, skip it or book a visit.
Start in Széchenyi tér, the main square, which slopes uphill towards the green dome at its top. It has been the center of town since the Middle Ages and the meeting point ever since: under the Hunyadi statue, by the Holy Trinity column or at the Zsolnay fountain at the bottom of the square, a small domed pavilion of shimmering green-blue ceramic with ox heads as water spouts, copied from a vessel in the Nagyszentmiklós treasure, a hoard of early medieval gold. Miklós Zsolnay gave it to the city in memory of his father, the factory made it in 1909-12, and it was finally put up here in 1930.
Look at the colors around you. The yellow Town Hall, the County Hall with its glazed roof tiles and the bank buildings mostly went up around the turn of the 20th century, when Pécs was rich on coal and ceramics, and you'll see the Zsolnay glazes everywhere in town once you start looking.
The building with the green dome at the top of the square is the city's symbol and its strangest one: a mosque that has been a Catholic church for more than three centuries. The Ottomans took Pécs in 1543, and in the following decades Pasha Qasim built the mosque on the site of the medieval church of St. Bartholomew, using its stones. When the Habsburg army retook the city in 1686, the Jesuits turned it back into a church, and what the siege had left of the minaret was pulled down in 1766.
Inside, the two religions sit side by side: a Christian altar under the dome, Ottoman windows and prayer niche, and verses from the Quran still painted on the walls. It's the largest building left from the Ottoman period anywhere in Hungary, and there's nothing else like it in Hungary.
Next door, at number 12, in a house said to have belonged to a janissary commander, the Janus Pannonius Museum opened its new main exhibition in 2024, called A hely szelleme, the spirit of the place. It tells the story of Pécs and the region from prehistory to today, with Roman finds from Sopianae, Ottoman objects and the many peoples who've lived here.
It's the best first lesson in why the city looks the way it does, and the Roman stone collection in the courtyard is free.
Have lunch the Hungarian way, starting with a soup: gulyás, which in Hungary is a soup and not a stew (more on that in What to Eat and Drink). István Pince, a cellar restaurant in the old town, is known for its bean goulash.
On weekdays, look for a napi menü, a cheap set lunch of soup and a main course, which is what locals eat at midday.
A few minutes south of the square, on Kossuth Square, stands the synagogue, built in 1869 in a romantic style for what was then a large and confident Jewish community; its organ was the first ever built by József Angster, later one of the great organ makers of Central Europe. In 1944 the Jews of Pécs were forced into a ghetto and deported, most of them to Auschwitz, and about nine in ten never came back. The tablets in the entrance hall carry their names. A small community still uses the building, and the richly painted interior is worth the visit on its own.
Walk ten minutes west to the Jakovali Hassan Mosque, smaller and far less famous than the one on the square but more complete. On the way, at the end of Ferencesek utcája, you pass the open-air remains of Memi Pasha's bath, the city's 16th-century Turkish bath. Built in the second half of the 16th century, it's the only place in Hungary where both a mosque and its minaret have survived, and after a long restoration it reopened with a small exhibition on Ottoman Pécs and the dervishes.
It's often almost empty, and the best place to imagine what this city was like when it had more than a dozen mosques. A few minutes away, in the garden of the children's hospital, stands the fifth Ottoman monument of Pécs, the domed tomb (türbe) of Idris Baba, a 16th-century dervish; you can go inside by booking a day ahead.
Király utca, the pedestrian street running east from the square, is where Pécs goes out. It's lined with 19th-century facades, the National Theatre from 1895 and terraces from end to end, and the students of the university keep it busy late into the night.
If there's something on at the theater, go; otherwise, start with a cold Szalon, the local beer, on a terrace and drift between the courtyard bars and ruin-pub-style places where the city's bands play. Tomorrow evening is for wine.
Today stays in the upper, northern part of the old town, where the bishops lived. Everything except the cathedral is closed on Mondays, and the museums open at 10, so start at the cathedral and keep the museums for the afternoon.
The bishops of Pécs have had a church on this spot since King Stephen founded the diocese in 1009, and Pécs Cathedral has been rebuilt many times since. What you see now is mostly the work of Friedrich von Schmidt, the Viennese architect who rebuilt it in neo-Romanesque style in the 1880s around its medieval core, with a tower at each corner.
The inside is painted from floor to ceiling by Károly Lotz and Bertalan Székely, two of the best Hungarian painters of the time, and the crypt underneath, from the 12th century, is the oldest part; the humanist bishop and poet Janus Pannonius was reburied there. Climb the 60 m southeast tower for the view over the rooftops to the plain, and look for the statue of Franz Liszt, by Imre Varga, leaning over the balcony of the Bishop's Palace next door.
Under the square in front of the cathedral lies Sopianae's cemetery, the city of the dead of a Roman town that became the capital of the province of Valeria around 300 AD. Its Christians built family burial chambers, some of them painted, and they survived under the later town. Since 2000 the Early Christian Necropolis has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The visitor center, Cella Septichora, is built around the foundations of a seven-lobed memorial chapel, and glass walkways take you between the tombs. Don't stop there: the paintings are the reason to come, and they're in two separate buildings on the same ticket, the Peter and Paul burial chamber and the Early Christian Mausoleum across the square. Adam and Eve, Daniel in the lions' den, Noah, the apostles Peter and Paul, painted around 1,700 years ago and still bright.
West of the cathedral, a path runs along the best preserved stretch of the medieval walls to the Barbakán, a round bastion built around 1500 that guarded the northwest corner of the bishop's castle. The gardens next to it are a quiet place to sit.
North of the cathedral, inside the same castle, archaeologists dug up what's believed to be Hungary's first university, founded by King Louis I in 1367. It lasted only a couple of decades, but its remains can be visited with a ticket from Cella Septichora. Bishop György Klimo opened his library, the Klimo Library, to the public in 1774, and it's traditionally called the first public library in Hungary; today it belongs to the university and can be visited by appointment. Next to the cathedral, the Dóm Lapidarium shows the carved stones of the medieval church. On your way to the museums, look for the railings covered in thousands of padlocks on Janus Pannonius utca. Locals date the tradition to the 1980s, and the favorite story is that graduating students hung up the padlocks from their school lockers; couples took it over, long before the craze reached Paris.
Tivadar Kosztka Csontváry was a pharmacist who, at 27, believed a voice told him he'd be the greatest painter in the world, the "greater than Raphael" of his own description. He painted huge, strange, glowing canvases of cedars, ruins and the Holy Land, sold almost nothing and died largely unrecognized in 1919. Today he's seen as one of the most original Hungarian painters, and this small museum holds his masterpieces, including The Lonely Cedar and the enormous Baalbek.
Even if you don't usually do art museums, this one is worth an hour.
Round the corner, Káptalan utca, the old canons' street, is lined with museums. Victor Vasarely, the father of op art, was born in Pécs in 1906, by tradition in the house at number 3, and the museum there is full of his dizzying patterns. Across the street, in the oldest known house in the city, the Zsolnay Museum shows how the family factory went from stoneware jugs in the 1850s to the iridescent eosin glazes that made it famous across Europe by 1900.
Do at least these two. If you still have energy, the street has more, including a small museum of Martyn and Lantos, two later Pécs artists, which you need to book by phone.
Pécs has its own small wine region on the slopes of the Mecsek, and its grape is Cirfandli, a white known as Zierfandler in Austria, which came here around 1850 and is grown almost nowhere else in Hungary. It's aromatic and slightly spicy, a good way in before the big Villány reds on day four.
Eleven Vinotéka and the other wine bars of the old town pour local wines by the glass, and the staff are usually happy to explain the difference between Villány, Szekszárd and the Mecsek.
The Zsolnay Quarter is about 1.5 km east of the center, a 20-minute walk or a short bus ride. For the TV tower, the easiest way up from the quarter is a taxi, about 15 minutes; by bus, take 35 or 35Y from near the railway station, about once an hour. The walk back down to town takes about an hour, mostly downhill through the forest.
In 2010 Pécs was a European Capital of Culture, and its biggest project was turning the old Zsolnay porcelain factory into the Zsolnay Cultural Quarter: a campus of brick factory buildings, ceramic fountains and gardens, with museums, a planetarium, a puppet museum, galleries, the Kodály Centre concert hall next door and the university's arts faculty.
Don't miss the Gyugyi Collection, the largest private collection of Zsolnay pieces, or the family mausoleum on the hill above, covered in the factory's own tiles. In the show workshop you can watch craftsmen shape and glaze the ceramics the way the factory still does.
Have lunch in the quarter before heading up the hill, and if it's on the menu, try lecsó, the pepper and tomato stew that every Hungarian family makes in late summer. Then, if it's Thursday to Sunday, pick up a piece of chocolate from Csoko-Láda, the small chocolate shop by the quarter's gate.
The TV tower on Misina peak, 535 m up in the Mecsek, is visible from everywhere in the city and is its modern symbol. Finished in 1973 and 197 m tall, it's the tallest building in Hungary, and a lift takes you up to a café at 72 m and an open terrace above it, from which, on a clear day, you can see the whole city below, the plain stretching south towards Croatia and, to the north, as far as Badacsony on Lake Balaton.
Time it for the late afternoon, have a coffee up there and start the walk down while it's still light.
Walk down from the tower through the forest, past the Pécs Zoo and the viewpoints of the Mecsek, to Tettye, a park on the hillside above the old town. Just before it, the little church of Our Lady of the Snows on Havi-hegy has the view of the city that every local photographs. Its centerpiece is the ruin of a Renaissance summer palace built by Bishop György Szatmári in the early 16th century. Under the Ottomans it became a dervish lodge, a tekke, which is most likely where the name Tettye comes from.
There's a small tufa cave in the park too, and on a summer evening the lawns are full of families and dog walkers.
After the Ottomans left, the region's villages lay half empty, and through the 18th century the Habsburgs brought in German settlers. The Swabians, as Hungarians call them, gave Baranya much of its food. Have dinner at Tettye Vendéglő on the hillside, run by the same family since 1986, and order the Swabian dishes: pejsli, a sour stew of lung that tastes better than it sounds, töltöttes, and toros leves, the rich soup made on pig-killing day.
Ask for a fröccs with it, white wine mixed with soda water, which Hungarians drink all summer.
South of Pécs the land flattens out towards the Drava and Croatia, and the little Villány hills rise out of it covered in vines. Buses run from Pécs to Siklós about every half hour (40-50 minutes) and from Siklós to Villány in about 20 minutes, and the train takes you from Villány back to Pécs in about 40 minutes. Máriagyűd and the cellar row at Villánykövesd are a few kilometers from the bus and train stops, so you'll need a taxi or a walk; a car with a sober driver or a tour makes the day easier. Book wine tastings ahead, especially at weekends, and check MÁV for replacement buses, since the Pécs lines had works in autumn 2026.
Siklós Castle has been in use since the 13th century and is one of the best preserved castles in Hungary. It belonged to the powerful Garai family for most of the 15th century, was an Ottoman fortress from 1543 to 1686, and was rebuilt in baroque style by the Batthyány family in the 18th, so you get Gothic walls, bastions and a beautiful late-Gothic chapel together with grander rooms upstairs.
The ticket covers a lot: a wine cellar and an exhibition on the wine region, rooms on the Serbian and Croatian heritage of the area, weapons, Renaissance furniture and, for those who like that sort of thing, a dungeon and a torture chamber. Walk the walls for the view over the town to the Villány hills.
On a hill just above Siklós, the baroque church of Máriagyűd, built in 1742 and a basilica since 2008, has been one of the most important Catholic pilgrimage sites in southern Hungary for centuries, drawing Hungarians, Croats and Germans alike. Even if pilgrimages aren't your thing, the church on its terrace and the view over the vineyards are worth the detour, about 3 km uphill from the castle: a short taxi ride or a 45-minute walk.
Villány is a small town that's mostly one long street of wineries, cellars and guesthouses, and the heart of Hungary's best-known red wine region. Its signature is Cabernet Franc, the best of it bottled as Villányi Franc, and the region also makes big, rich blends and the light Portugieser that the locals drink in summer.
Have lunch in one of the winery restaurants and let the food follow the wine: grilled meats, game stews, local cheeses. Ask what's local on the menu, because the cooking of the villages around here mixes Hungarian, Swabian and Croatian.
The afternoon is for tasting. Villány's family wineries run from small cellars dug into the hillside to modern estates, and the nearby village of Villánykövesd has a row of old press houses and cellars stacked up the slope that looks like it hasn't changed in a hundred years. In 1994 the winemakers here founded the Villány-Siklós Wine Route, the first in Hungary.
Book two or three tastings rather than trying to see everything, and between them walk up among the vines. If you're driving, the cellars will happily pour you a smaller glass, but Hungary has a zero alcohol limit for drivers, so it's better to let someone else drive.
A slower last day. The morning is in town, ending at the market hall next to the bus station, then the bus to the lakes at Orfű, about 35 minutes into the hills, and the evening back in the old town.
Start at 10 at the Modern Hungarian Gallery on Papnövelde utca, part of the Janus Pannonius Museum, which covers Hungarian art from the 1890s to today: Rippl-Rónai, Gulácsy and Mednyánszky, the avant-garde group The Eight, and the abstract art that Pécs, a city of artists, has always taken seriously. It fills in the story you started with Csontváry and Vasarely.
It also tells a story you might not expect: Pécs is the birthplace of Marcel Breuer, the Bauhaus designer of the tubular steel Wassily chair, and of the Bauhaus architects Farkas Molnár and Alfréd Forbát.
Start the day the way Hungarians do at a market: with a lángos, a disk of deep-fried dough rubbed with garlic and topped with sour cream and grated cheese. It's heavy, greasy and very good. The market hall on Zólyom utca, about a kilometer south of the center and right next to the bus station, is also the place to see what the region grows, from peppers and paprika to sausages and honey, and to buy a bag of paprika to take home.
Orfű is a village in the western Mecsek built around a chain of small lakes, and it's where Pécs goes to relax: swimming in summer, paddle boats, walks around the water and restaurants on the shore. There are old watermills with a small museum (open from May to September), and at the end of June the lakeside hosts Fishing on Orfű, a music festival started in 2008 by András Lovasi, the singer of the cult Pécs band Kispál és a Borz.
It's nothing grand, and that's the point: an easy afternoon in the hills before your last night. In summer, bring a swimsuit.
For the last night, book a table at one of the old town's traditional restaurants and order the dishes of the south. Halászlé is fisherman's soup, a fiery red broth of river fish and paprika; in the Danube towns, like Mohács and Baja, it often comes with pasta. Then paprikás csirke or a pörkölt, and finish with a slice of cake. Mecsek Cukrászda on Széchenyi Square, has its own "city cake" alongside the classic Dobos torta.
End with a glass of pálinka, the fruit brandy, and a toast: egészségedre. If you're in town in the concert season, check the program of the Kodály Centre, the concert hall built for the culture capital year, before dinner.
With more days, these are the best trips from Pécs, from a carnival of horned masks to the castle where one of the great sieges of Hungarian history was fought.
Pécsvárad has a castle built around a Benedictine abbey founded by King Stephen, now a museum, and above it rises Zengő, at 682 m the highest peak of the Mecsek. The steel lookout tower on top, built in 2020, is free and always open. It's the best hike near Pécs and a good half day.
Getting there: 20 km northeast, about 30 minutes by bus
Abaliget is a show cave with a stream running through it and a small bat museum next door, an easy visit that goes well with an afternoon at the Orfű lakes. Tours start on the hour, and the cave closes now and then for a day, so check its website before you go.
Getting there: 20 km northwest, about 50 minutes by bus, near Orfű
Every February, the Danube town of Mohács fills with busós: men in sheepskin coats and carved wooden masks with horns, who chase away winter with noise, rattles and bonfires. The Busójárás is the carnival of the Šokci, a Croatian community, and it's on UNESCO's list of intangible heritage. Locals love to say the masks scared off the Ottomans, but that's a legend: the Šokci only settled here after the Ottomans had gone, in the late 1600s, and brought the end-of-winter custom with them. In 2027 it should run from 4 to 9 February, ending on Shrove Tuesday.
Mohács is also where the Ottomans crushed the Hungarian army in 1526; the young King Louis II drowned in a stream as he fled, and the defeat split Hungary for 150 years. The memorial park on the battlefield at Sátorhely, 7 km southwest of town, was rebuilt for the 500th anniversary and reopened in 2026 with a new chapel, contemporary sculpture and an underground exhibition.
Getting there: 45 km east, about 1 hour by bus
Harkány is the spa town of the region, built around a thermal bath whose warm, sulfur-rich water was discovered in 1823 and has been used for cures ever since. The bath complex has indoor and outdoor pools, and it's an easy addition to the Siklós and Villány day, only a few kilometers away.
Getting there: 26 km south, about 40 minutes by bus
In 1566 Miklós Zrínyi held Szigetvár castle with a few thousand men against the army of Suleiman the Magnificent, and died leading the last charge. Suleiman died in his tent during the siege. You can walk the walls of the castle and see the former mosque inside it. Just outside town, at Turbék, archaeologists from Pécs excavated the remains of the tomb built where, by tradition, the Sultan's heart and organs were buried. The castle is closed on Mondays from October to April.
Getting there: 35 km west, about 45 minutes by train or bus
Szekszárd is the other great red wine region of the south, known for its Bikavér, "bull's blood", a red blend whose name was first used for Szekszárd wine in an 1846 poem, before Eger made it famous, and for Kadarka, a light, spicy red grape said to have come to Hungary with Serbian settlers. The harvest festival in September takes over the whole town.
Getting there: 60 km northeast, about 1-1.5 hours by bus
Southern Hungarian food is paprika, pork, river fish and sour cream, with Swabian, Croatian and Serbian cooking mixed in. These are the dishes and drinks not to leave without trying.
The national dish isn't a stew but a soup: beef, onion, potato and plenty of paprika, cooked slowly, originally in a cauldron over a fire by the cattle herders of the plain. What the rest of the world calls goulash, Hungarians call pörkölt.
Where to try it: Any traditional restaurant, often as part of a cheap lunch menu.
Fisherman's soup, made with carp and other river fish and enough paprika to turn it deep red. Every river town has its own version: on the Danube, in Baja and Mohács, it often comes with pasta, and in Szeged on the Tisza they strain it smooth. Ask three locals which is right and you'll get three answers.
Where to try it: Restaurants with a fish menu; the best is in the Danube towns like Mohács.
Paprikás csirke: chicken braised with onion and paprika and finished with sour cream, served with nokedli, small soft egg dumplings. A classic Sunday lunch at home.
Where to try it: Traditional restaurants and every Hungarian grandmother's kitchen.
Deep-fried flatbread, rubbed with garlic and topped with sour cream and grated cheese. The street food of markets, beaches and swimming pools, and a favorite breakfast after a long night.
Where to try it: Market halls, lakeside stands at Orfű and the thermal baths.
Chimney cake: a strip of sweet dough wound around a wooden roller, baked over charcoal until caramelized and rolled in sugar, cinnamon, walnuts or coconut. It comes from the Székely Hungarians of Transylvania and is now sold everywhere.
Where to try it: Stalls in the old town and at festivals, especially the Advent market on Széchenyi Square.
Five or six thin layers of sponge with chocolate buttercream and a hard, shiny caramel top, invented by the Budapest confectioner József Dobos in 1884. The Esterházy torte, layered with walnut and vanilla cream, is the other classic.
Where to try it: A cukrászda (pastry shop) with a coffee, like Mecsek Cukrászda on Széchenyi Square.
Peppers, tomatoes and onions stewed with paprika, sometimes with sausage or eggs. It's what Hungary eats in late summer when the peppers are cheap, and the base of a lot of other dishes.
Where to try it: Lunch menus in summer and autumn.
Pécs has old Serbian and Croatian communities and the Balkans are next door, so the grill culture runs south: ćevapi in flatbread with raw onion, pljeskavica and grilled meats with ajvar. A taste of the region's mixed roots.
Where to try it: Balkán Bisztró and other Balkan grills in the old town.
Fruit brandy, distilled from plums, apricots, pears, cherries or quince, and much stronger than it smells. A good pálinka is served barely chilled, in a tulip-shaped glass, and sipped. Only fruit spirits distilled in Hungary from Hungarian fruit (plus apricot brandy from four Austrian provinces) can legally be called pálinka.
Where to try it: Restaurants, wine bars and the cellars of Villány.
Villány is Hungary's red wine capital and the warmest wine region in the country. Its star is Cabernet Franc (Villányi Franc), with big Bordeaux-style blends and the light Portugieser for summer. Szekszárd, an hour away, makes Bikavér and Kadarka.
Where to try it: The wineries of Villány and Villánykövesd, and the wine bars of Pécs.
The white wines to try in Pécs are Cirfandli, the local grape of the Mecsek slopes, and Olaszrizling from all over the country. For dessert, Tokaji Aszú, the famous sweet wine from Tokaj in the northeast, made from grapes shriveled by noble rot, is on every good wine list in Hungary.
Where to try it: Eleven Vinotéka and the other wine bars in the old town.
Pécs has its own brewery, founded in 1848, whose Szalon beer is a southern Hungarian institution. Craft beer has caught on too, and several bars in town pour Hungarian craft IPAs and stouts.
Where to try it: Any bar in town; the brewery has run tours with a tasting on Saturday mornings.
Pécs is small. Anywhere in or near the old town puts days one, two and five within walking distance, and the bus and train stations are a short walk or ride away for the day trips.
Best for: First-timers who want to walk everywhere
Between Széchenyi Square, the cathedral and Király utca. The most convenient base, with guesthouses and apartments in old buildings. The catch is noise from the bars on Király utca on weekend nights.
Best for: A quieter old-town base
The upper, northern part of the old town around Dóm tér and Káptalan utca. Quieter in the evening and close to the museums, with the main square five minutes downhill.
Best for: Views and a calmer stay
Hotels and guesthouses on the hillside above town, around Tettye and the road to the TV tower. Lovely views and fresh air, but it's uphill all the way back from dinner, so it suits people with a car or good legs.
The practical stuff that makes the first day in Pécs easier.
Hungary uses the forint (HUF), not the euro, at about 365 forints to the euro. Cards are accepted almost everywhere, but carry some cash for markets and small cellars. Use bank ATMs, and when a card machine or ATM offers to charge you in euros, always choose forints.
The old town is best on foot. City buses are run by Tüke Busz: a ticket bought in advance (ticket offices or the Közlekedési Mobiljegy app) is 500 forints, from the driver 600. For Siklós, Harkány and Orfű, Volán buses leave from the bus station, and trains to Villány from the railway station; menetrendek.hu has all the timetables.
Hungary has a zero alcohol limit for drivers, and it's enforced. On the wine day, take the train, a tour or a taxi, or nominate someone who'll only taste and spit.
Most museums in Pécs are closed on Mondays, and the synagogue opens only from May to October. Many Villány cellars cut their hours in winter. Plan the wine day for a weekday or book ahead for the weekend.
Around 10% in restaurants is normal, unless a service charge (szervizdíj) is already on the bill, so check before you add more. Tell the waiter the total you want to pay when you hand over the card or cash, rather than leaving money on the table.
Hungarian isn't related to its neighbors' languages and won't help you guess anything. Younger people speak good English, and many older people in the south speak some German. Köszönöm (thanks), szia (hi) and egészségedre (cheers) go a long way.
Hungary is in the EU, so EU roaming works like at home. Plugs are the usual European two-pin type (C and F), 230 V.
Not if you use the region. The city itself needs two or three days, and Villány, Siklós, the Mecsek and the lakes fill the rest. With only two days, do days one and two of this plan.
Széchenyi Square and the Mosque Church, the cathedral, the Early Christian Necropolis (UNESCO), the Jakovali Hassan Mosque, the Csontváry and Vasarely museums, the Zsolnay Cultural Quarter and the view from the TV tower. This plan covers all of them.
Villány and Siklós, for wine and a castle, which is day four here. In February, Mohács and the Busójárás carnival is the one trip worth planning the whole holiday around.
Yes. It's one of the most interesting cities in Central Europe outside the capitals: Roman tombs, Ottoman mosques, a beautiful old town and a wine region next door, with a fraction of Budapest's crowds and prices.
Yes. It's a calm university town, and crime against visitors is rare. Use normal sense at night in the bar streets, as you would anywhere.
No, especially compared with Budapest. A coffee is around 2 EUR, a two-course lunch menu 8-12 EUR and museum tickets a few euros.
Mostly no. Prices are in forints and shops expect forints, though some hotels and wineries quote in euros. Pay by card or withdraw forints from a bank ATM.
By train, about 2.5 hours, with a direct InterCity every two hours from Budapest-Déli via Kelenföld; a few start only at Kelenföld, so that's the safe station to use (trains from Keleti need a change). Buses from Népliget take 3-4 hours, and by car it's about 2.5 hours on the M6 motorway.
Find Pécs on the map, learn the flag and check how much you really know about Hungary.
A city the Tisza wiped out in one night in 1879, rebuilt in Art Nouveau and paprika red.
A baroque town that held off an Ottoman army, then spent the next centuries digging wine cellars into its hills.
Two cities on one river, thermal water under both, and a hundred years of history you can still see on the walls.
