Lipótváros — Leopold Town, the fifth district — is the administrative and financial heart of Pest. The Hungarian Parliament dominates its northern end along the Danube; St. Stephen's Basilica anchors the south. Between them lies a grid of broad 19th-century streets lined with neoclassical and eclectic facades housing banks, ministries, and the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The Gresham Palace, now a Four Seasons hotel, stands at the Pest end of the Chain Bridge and is one of the finest pieces of Art Nouveau architecture in the region.
The district is less hectic than the tourist-dense areas further south and east, and rewards slow walking. The embankment here offers unobstructed views of Buda Castle across the river. Szabadság tér (Liberty Square) is a pleasant green space surrounded by imposing institutional buildings; it contains a controversial monument to Hungarian victims of the German occupation that was installed without public consultation in 2014 and has been permanently countered by a citizens' memorial placed directly in front of it. The tension between the two is itself worth seeing.