Astoria: The Printing Press, the Hotel and the City Gate
Why is it significant?
You are at one of the busiest crossroads in Budapest, with traffic pouring in from four directions and, on the corner, the tall, elegant front of the Hotel Astoria, opened in 1914. The whole junction, and the metro station below it, simply takes its name from the hotel.
Key Facts
| Place | Astoria: The Printing Press, the Hotel and the City Gate |
|---|---|
| Address | Kossuth Lajos utca 19-21, 1053 Budapest, Hungary |
| Geo Coordinates | 47.49380, 19.05980 |
| Part of Walk | Coffee, Cake & Paprika: A Budapest Food Walk from Gerbeaud to the Great Market Hall |
| Generated | Generated |
You are at one of the busiest crossroads in Budapest, with traffic pouring in from four directions and, on the corner, the tall, elegant front of the Hotel Astoria, opened in 1914. The whole junction, and the metro station below it, simply takes its name from the hotel.
On your way here you passed the corner of Szép utca. That is where the printing house of Landerer and Heckenast stood in 1848. On 15 March the young men from the Pilvax arrived there and, without the censor's stamp, had the National Song and the twelve demands printed. Hungarians still call those sheets the first products of the free Hungarian press.
The hotel has its own revolution. In late October 1918, as the First World War was being lost, the Hungarian National Council led by Count Mihály Károlyi gathered at the Astoria. Within days, soldiers and crowds wearing asters in their caps took over the city, and the uprising became known as the Aster Revolution, named after the flower, not the hotel, though Budapesters have enjoyed the coincidence ever since.
Now for food. Medieval Pest ended right here. The town wall ran along today's ring road, and on this spot stood the Hatvan Gate, through which the road came in from the east. Herds of grey cattle from the Great Plain, carts of grain and wine, peasant women with baskets of eggs and poultry... for centuries the food of Pest walked or rolled in through gates like this one. The ring road you are standing on is the line where the town stopped and the countryside began.
And inside the Astoria, the café still keeps something of the grand hotel style, a good place for a quiet coffee among the chandeliers. Now turn right and walk south along Múzeum körút. On your left, behind railings and trees, a great columned palace will appear.