Things to do
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Déri Museum
Frigyes Déri, a silk manufacturer, gave his collection to the city, and a neo baroque hall went up for it between 1923 and 1929. Munkácsy's three vast Christ canvases hang in a room of their own, brought together here and shown in sequence. Ferenc Medgyessy's bronze figures sit on the terrace outside, and the rest runs from Egyptian antiquities to local history.
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Hortobágy National Park
Eight hundred square kilometres of alkaline steppe west of the city, protected as Hungary's first national park in 1973 and listed by UNESCO in 1999 for four thousand years of herding. Grey cattle, racka sheep and Nonius horses are still worked from horseback. Autumn brings common cranes through on migration, and the distances are long enough that a car or a booked wagon tour is the practical way in.
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Nagyerdő
Oak woodland begins where the avenue north of the centre ends, and thirty one hectares of it became Hungary's first protected area in 1939. The university's main building faces the park across a fountain, with a thermal bath, a boating lake and a stadium among the trees. Tram one loops out from the station, so reaching it takes no planning.
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Nine-holed Bridge
A classical stone bridge of nine arches carries the old Debrecen road over the Hortobágy River, built between 1827 and 1833 to replace a wooden crossing and widened at each end so herds could be driven across. At a little over a hundred and sixty metres it was the longest stone road bridge in historic Hungary. It stands beside the inn at Hortobágy village.
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Reformed Great Church
Twin towers sixty one metres high mark the neoclassical church that replaced the one lost in the city fire of 1802, built to Mihály Péchy's design. Kossuth read the declaration deposing the Habsburgs from here in 1849, and his armchair is still on show. The Rákóczi bell hangs in the western tower, and the stairs above it are open to climb.