ELTE Fűvészkert, Budapest

ELTE Fűvészkert is Hungary’s first botanical garden, now operating as a special educational unit of Eötvös Loránd University in Józsefváros. Its story began in 1771, when the garden was created in Nagyszombat to support medical teaching and the study of medicinal plants; after several relocations, it reached this site in 1847. The old palm house gives this place a literary connection: in Ferenc Molnár’s The Paul Street Boys, Nemecsek Ernő and his companions use it as a hiding place.

That novel also helped preserve the name Füvészkert in public use. The garden’s celebrated Victoria House was built for the Amazonian giant water lily, and the collections now include about 8,000 kinds of living plants. Among them are protected native species, orchids, cacti, and ginkgo trees more than 150 years old.

The palm house itself dates from 1864 to 1865 and remains in the garden today. As you take in the glass structures and the mature trees, you are looking at a teaching garden whose roots reach back to the history of Hungarian medical education.