The Great Synagogue is the gateway to what was once a sizable Jewish quarter in the heart of Budapest, in District VII. In the early part of the century, roughly half of this area's residents were Jewish. During the German occupation in 1944, part of this district - the area between Dohiny utca, Király utca and Erzsébet körút - was walled off and turned into a ghetto, where about 70,000 were confined under brutal conditions. This ghetto was the only one in Europe to be spared total liquidation - in this instance the arrival of the Red Army really did mean a liberation.

These days of course, the old Jewish district is also home to an intense cluster of mostly ruined pubs and garden bars, and to the 'Gozsdu Courtyard' Budapest's answer to Covent Garden, which you'll find at Dob utca 16.