The Secrets of
Szentendre

Where Serbian Exiles Painted a New Home

Szentendre is a jewel of the Danube Bend — a town whose cobblestone lanes, pastel-colored Baroque facades, and onion-domed Serbian Orthodox churches tell the story of an extraordinary cultural crossroads.

Named after Saint Andrew (Szent András), its roots reach back to the Roman fortress of Ulcisia Castra, but the town we see today was shaped by Serbian, Dalmatian, and Greek refugees who arrived in 1690, fleeing Ottoman conquest. They built seven Orthodox churches and gave Szentendre its unmistakable Mediterranean atmosphere.

By the 1920s, painters discovered what the Serbs had known for centuries — that the light here is different. The Szentendre Artists' Colony, founded in 1926, transformed the town into Hungary's most celebrated art village, just 40 minutes from Budapest.