Debrecen is Hungary's second city, and it has always done things its own way. While Budapest looked to Vienna and the Catholic Habsburgs, Debrecen looked east and embraced Calvinism. The Great Reformed Church on Kossuth tér — the largest Protestant church in Hungary — still dominates the city center, and the Reformed College next to it has been a center of Hungarian learning since the sixteenth century. It was in this church that Lajos Kossuth declared Hungarian independence from Austria in 1849, and the city briefly served as the nation's capital.
The center of Debrecen is compact and walkable. Piac utca, the main street, runs south from the Great Church past shops and cafes to the train station. The real draw is the Nagyerdő — the Great Forest — a large park on the city's northern edge with thermal baths, a zoo, and an amusement park. Locals treat it as their backyard, and on summer weekends the thermal pools are full.
What makes Debrecen worth a stop is its position as the gateway to the Hortobágy National Park, the vast puszta grassland about 40 kilometers to the west. This is the oldest national park in Hungary and a UNESCO World Heritage Site — an enormous flat steppe where you can see grey cattle herds, traditional csikós horsemen, and massive flocks of cranes during autumn migration. If you are interested in the Hungarian plains, Debrecen is the obvious base.