Ópusztaszer National Heritage Park

The Ópusztaszer National Heritage Park was founded in 1982 and commemorates the Hungarian conquest of the Carpathian Basin. Its centrepiece is the Feszty Panorama, “The Arrival of the Hungarians”: it is 15 metres high and 120 metres long and forms a circular painting 38 metres in diameter. Árpád Feszty and his collaborators completed it in 1894, to mark the thousandth anniversary of the event it depicts; only 16 such cycloramas survive worldwide. The rotunda also holds further panoramas, wax figures and exhibitions on the Szer monastery and on ethnography.

The open-air village, which has existed since 1978, has 19 historic buildings. In the Nomad Park you can see yurts and go riding; the grounds also contain the ruins of Szer monastery. The park lies on the Great Hungarian Plain and suits families well. Some programmes run only seasonally, so check what is on offer before you travel.