After leaving from Budapest’s magnificent Nyugati station (designed by Gustav Eiffel), we’ll arrive in Vác forty minutes later. At the beautifully refurbished Vác Railway Station we’ll see a plaque commemorating the historic event of the opening of the first steam locomotive railway line on 15 July 1846 between Pest and Vác. This date is regarded as the birth date of the Hungarian railways. The Romantic poet Sándor Petőfi, later a leader of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, rode on the first train and wrote an occasional poem, predicting that rails would connect Hungary like blood vessels in the human body.

We’ll start our unhurried walk into the town centre along a cobble-stoned pedestrian street to reach the picturesque main square named March 15 Square in memory of the breakout of the 1848 Revolution. Here we’ll start the culinary part of our tour with a nice cup of coffee at the cosy and beautifully named Margaréta Kávéház (Ox-eye Daisy Coffee House). Here we will meet briefly Eszter, a local resident, who will share her experiences with us on what’s everyday life is like in a small place like Vác.
Without leaving the square we can delight in a wide array of historic Baroque public buildings including the Town Hall, the Hospital and the Chapel of the Sisters of Charity, the Greek Church, The Palace of the Grand Provost and the the Church of the Whites with the convent.

We’ll continue our walk towards the major landmark of the city The Triumphal Arch,  a “L’Arc de Triomphe” style monument built by the Vac patriarchs in 1764 to welcome the new empress, Maria Theresa, to the town as she was passing through the town from Vienna to Budapest.

One of the famous or rather infamous buildings of the town is the Vác Prison, a huge complex built in early 19th century, the hospitality of which was enjoyed by dozens of political prisoners as part of the retaliation after the brutally crushed 1956 Revolution, including Árpád Göncz who became the first and enormously popular President of Hungary after the collapse of Communism.

Without any overplanning, we will just ramble along the small streets of the town including the beautifully reconstructed and green embankment of the Danube and taste the Vác style fishermen’s soup that locals are so proud of at the HALÁSZKERT ÉTTEREM (Fishermen’s Garden Restaurant).

After the culinary delicacies we’ll walk on to see the most famous piece of architecture of the town, the The Vác Cathedral on Konstantin Square and the Bishop’s Palace. The Vác bishopry is one of the major institutions of the Hungarian Catholic Church even today.

We’ll wrap up our wonderings in Vác at the Mihályi patisserie claiming to have the best cakes in Hungary.