Zeidler Miklós: Sporting Spaces - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2000)

The National Manege used as a gymnasium (1867)

the National Manége built by Miklós Ybl at No. 5 Ötpacsirta utca, next to the Károlyi Palace. Completed in 1858, the building later catered to the needs of its guests with a separate gymnasium, a fencing and a dance hall and, what is more, it was here that Hungary’s first cycling competition was held.

Finally, the neighbourhood’s school gymnasia can also be mentioned among the inner-city sports facilities, together with the increasingly fashionable fitness centres as well as the tiny football pitches which have been a familiar sight on every empty site in recent years but which, like the vacant lot used by the fabled Pál-utca boys in Ferenc Molnár’s eponymous novel, have disappeared.

The City Park and environs

Ever since its opening almost two hundred years ago, the City Park has been at the service of those seeking rejuvenation through physical exercise. It has always been a destination of choice for excursion-makers, snowball-throwers, skaters, cyclists, table-tennis and football players, athletes, bathers, joggers and wheelchair riders. On numerous occasions the park has been the venue of various national and international cham26