Debrecen, Hungary

Debrecen is Hungary's second-largest city, with roughly 200,000 residents living on the Great Hungarian Plain. The city served as the national capital twice, first in 1849 during the 1848–49 revolution and again from 1944 to 1945. The Yellow Church, or Nagytemplom, was completed in 1821 and ranks as the largest Calvinist church in Hungary, with an interior that seats 1,800 worshipers. The 1538 Reformed College trained leading Hungarian intellectuals for centuries, and each 20 August since 1966 the city has held its annual Flower Carnival. What visitors find beyond those landmarks often reshapes what they thought they knew about eastern Hungary.