I’m still not sure when Hungary’s borders will reopen and travellers can visit Beautiful Budapest, so here is another building for you to admire from a distance.

The Academy of Music is a real jewellery box in the 6th district of Budapest. It’s a music university and a concert hall that opened in 1907. The style is a very interesting mixture of Gothic and Art Nouveau but you might see elements of Classicism, too. The facade is so ornate that it will take you some time to spot the statue of Franz Liszt right above the entrance. Franz Liszt, the most famous Hungarian composer founded the music academy in his home in 1875 and the academy got named after him in 1925.

The building can be visited, there are guided tours, but the most amazing experience is to go to a concert, so that you can admire the building and music at the same time. Most of the programs were either cancelled or are held online and personally I can’t wait to go in person hopefully in the near future.

The Budapest home of Liszt is surprisingly modest with only two rooms, one of them serving as bedroom and study at the same time but it’s nevertheless full of treasures. The Budapest home of the one and only Hungarian composer universally renowned as one of the greatests of the 19th century was on the elegant Andrássy avenue.

His home is a museum now and it’s a remarkably valuable collection of objects: personal items and amazing instruments of music. My favourite piece is a music composing desk with a built-in three-octave piano keyboard, specially designed for Liszt in the 1870’s. I also love the ornate music stand that Liszt received as a gift in 1858 and thanked it by saying: “I wish to produce soon some works worthy of being offered as an homage to the three patrons of music: Beethoven, Weber and Schubert” – whose busts decorate the wonderful piece.

Although Liszt only welcomed visitors in his home on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoons, the museum is open to visitors every day except Sundays.