Town of county rank, with 110,000 inhabitants, centre of the region between the Danube and the Tisza. Ecclesiastical sights include the Great church built in the style of the age of Louis XVI of France in 1806, Piarist church and monastery (baroque, 1730), Calvinist old boarding house (neoclassical, 1830), Calvinist church (rebuilt several times, 1684), Greek Orthodox church (neoclassical), Saint Elisabeth church (neo-Classical, 1827), Saint Nicholas Friars´ church (Romanesque, 14th century, reconstructed in the 18th century in baroque style by Franciscan friars who settled here), former synagogue (Moorish, Romantic) reconstructed as House of Technics, Lutheran church (Romantic) designed by Miklós Ybl.
Remarkable art nouveau buildings with a touch of Hungarian folk art are the Town Hall (1896), the Cifra Palace and the Youth House.
The former Romanesque monastery of the Franciscan order built by 1736 now houses the world-famous Kodály Institute of Musical Pedagogy. Notable collections: Szórakaténusz Toy Museum and Workshop, Kecskemét Art Gallery, Hungarian Museum of Folk Arts and Crafts, Katona József Memorial House, Planetarium, Leskowsky Collection of Musical Instruments, Bozsó Collection, Museum of School History, Museum of Hungarian Naive Artists, Ráday Museum, Hungarian Museum of Photography, Museum of History of Medicine and Pharmaceutics, Collection of Minerals and Palaeontology, Fruit Brandy Distillery and Exhibition of Kecskemét, "House of Nature" National Park Visitor Centre. City festivals: Kecskemét Spring Festival, Folk Dancers´ Stage - National Classification Festival, Solo dance Festival of Children Folk dancers - Regional final, Summer Festival of Kecskemét, Courtyard Theatre of the Town Hall, The Future of Europe - International Children´s and Youth Meeting, Music courtyard at the Youth House, Kodály Arts Festival, Hírös Hét (famous week) Festival, Folk Music Festival of Kecskemét - The day of folk music, National Children´s Folk Dance Festival. |
