Travel Guide Debrecen

220 km from Budapest, Debrecen, the second town of Hungary with 205 000 inhabitants, is located in the far east of the country near the Romanian border. City of Grande Plaine, a free city that has managed to retain its autonomy, Debrecen has developed over the centuries as an agricultural market. For a long time, the main income of the inhabitants came from the livestock trade. In the th and th centuries, when Hungary broke up following the Turkish invasion, Debrecen, thanks to its geographical position, became the largest trading centre between Royal Hungary, the Principality of Transylvania and the Ottoman Empire. This market-city position enabled him, under Turkish occupation, to pay for the enemy and thus avoid the destruction suffered by many other cities in Hungary. Fertile soil in the spirit of the Reformation, at the end of the th century, the city became the centre of Protestantism in Hungary. In this «Rome of Hungarian calvinists», the large church is the Protestant church, the largest in the country. Still today, the city remains strongly marked by Protestantism. Debrecen also hosts the largest Jewish community in the country after that of the capital. Finally, Debrecen is a university city since the Middle Ages. His faculty of theology founded in the th century was, for three centuries, a place of Hungarian civilization.Dynamic city today, it has been strongly renewed in recent years, renovating its religious places, setting up a new subway, reviving its international airport, inaugurating a stadium of 20 000 people, accentuating its great recreation area, Nagyerdő, and opening new bars and restaurants.Today, it is not uncommon to cross foreign students, especially in the summer, since the university has been organising intensive Hungarian courses for a hundred valiant students from all walks of life (www.nyariegyetem.hu) since 1923.A former rural market. Debrecen was formed by the meeting of several villages. Its structure reveals its former function as a rural market, with its important central place and its endless neighbourhoods of low houses, which are now surrounded by numerous cities of HOUSING type of the communist years. The city, which has recently been renovated, has long suffered from a lack of industries. The main road that crosses the south to the north (travelled by tram 1) is extended by places to train places. A circular street following the ancient ramparts defines the city centre, the Belváros, which is not far-reaching. This circle is cut by the Hydrostatic utca following the route of the old great road. It goes from the square Petőfi tér, in front of the station, to the place Kálvin tér, where is the Great Church. All monuments and sites to visit are located within this perimeter. 3 km north of the city centre, in Nagyerdő (the large wood), stands in thermal waters. There is also a zoo and a water plan. You can easily reach this large green area and the University of Debrecen, located next to the tram 1.