What to do in….. Budapest

a bit early as the missus has just booked a long weekend away next march, but im interested in what to see and do there.
yep, ill probably google/tripadvisor it myself later, but i find experiences on here valuable too.

so……where to eat/drink/visit, how to get around, any do’s/don’ts all welcome please.

thanks

Naked sauna at the Gellert Hotel, and a massage if you’re feeling brave.

Many years ago when we were inter-railing, we decided to cross the boarder from Slovakia to Budapest only to be stopped at the boarder by machine gun carrying boarder immigration officers. They refused us entry for no reasons because I/we was holding non-EU passports at that time. Although, we checked with our and their embassies before traveling no visa etc were required we were stopped and later was force march back to Slovakia boarder.

Now that place is swarmed! Woohoo! Swarmed! Serve them bloody right!

Let’s hope that place will not turn into a dump or shite hole but it will be as a matter of time.

Oh ya … if you are visiting Budapest … count the swarm and see how many can you find there. 😆

Definitely saunas, not sure about naked! Challenge a local to chess in the pool!

Some of the flea markets/ bazaars are pretty mental great for cold war / eastern bloc memorabilia? and random tat

Climb up to the top of the castle

Tube and tram are pretty cool ways to get around

Steam baths/pools Gellert one
The headquarters of the Starzi now a museum the House of terror
always get a ticket for the trams the secret police are now ticket inspectors!
Weather will be grim at that time of the year!

Cheap dentistry!!

Defo head up the castle… worth going in the late afternoon/eve to watch the sunset and see all the city lights come on.

There’s some cool markets and art galleries too…

We went a couple of months ago, stayed up by the castle in Buda, great views across the river to Pest.
Had a great time, its now one of my top cities in the world!
Ate lots of ghoulash, drank enough beer, wandered round for ages.
We visited the parliament, need to book in advance, highly unlikely to get tickets ‘on the day’.
We used the city sightseeing bus, more as a means of getting around than actually sightseeing, it included a short river cruise.
Lots more to see and do, but a top city, you’ll love it!

i lived in central budapest for 3 years.. cracking folks.. great social divides.. not much you ll recognise except for Tescos.. 12 i think in the city now..house of parliament modelled on ours..

Visit a few of the ‘ruin pubs’, not any in particular but try visit at least one – they’re very interesting & cool places to spend an evening or two.

I’ve not seen anything similar anywhere else.

Check if there are any Balkan Club nights on…

this stuff is the business:

Have a look around the amazing 1901 Baroque Gellert hotel then go round the back to the baths. Climb Gellert hill for the views. Then cross Gellert bridge and visit the really super covered market on the opposite bank, go up to the balcony and have a slug of cheap fire water distilled from grape skins, it’s called Grappa in Italy I think. There are loads of great restaurants and not much great shopping.

Oh have a look at the Gresham Four Seasons hotel, built in the ruined Gresham Palace that was built by a British insurance company. Mrs Gti and I explored the place when it was a filthy blackened ruin inhabited by a few diehard old timers and a lot of pigeons.

If you fly into Budapest don’t take a taxi, pay a few hundred Forint and use the city minibuses, which will deliver you to your hotel and collect you as well. There is a desk in the arrivals hall.

Hook up with a student couple and go to a hip hop concert at the student union, then get involved in the mosh pit before going to an open air club and drinking loads of mojitos and getting propositioned by a prostitute on your way back to your apartment (the old nut grab trick). Sleep off your hangover at the Gellert spa.
*you may not be able to arrange this stuff through your travel agent

The castle area and museums, fisherman’s basket, Gellert etc, ruin pubs, the cat cafe, eat and drink upstairs in the market, the terror museum, definitely szczesny baths, hire bikes and ride along the river, take a trip down the river on a boat, go to the A38, drink lots of cheap Borsodi and Soproni. I’m off again in a few weeks.

Try one of the room escape games. Google it for more info.

I used to work in Budapest around the turn of the century. Folks above have it covered
+1 for:
szczesny baths
gellert baths
castle
river cruise

If these places are still going, they are worth going to:
Old Man’s Music Pub – as the name implies, live music most nights of the week.
Fausto Italian – not cheap, but super quality.
Listz Ferenc Ter (Frans Listz Square) had outdoor eateries & a nice vibe, just round the corner from Oktagon.

In March you might still have crappy weather, it might be ok. Snow should be well gone, but roads might still be filthy, take some sturdy shoes.

egészségedre

Spent a long weekend in Budapest last year with a gorgeous 22 year old geophysics student I had met there a month earlier. Good times.. Anyway, where was I? Oh, that’s right:

Either/both of the baths mentioned above.
Mazel Tov – awesome restaurant/bar in the Jewish quarter that serves middle eastern food. Really nice unusual space and a really good vibe. Can get busy.
There’s a little hippy type tea shop called Sirius Teahaz if that’s your thing. Huge selection of tea to be drunk while you’re sprawled out on a load of cushions. Fun place. Very hard to find!

Are you staying in Buda or Pest?

thanks a lot for all the info chaps, much appreciated.

Are you staying in Buda or Pest?

sorry, dont know my geography too well, its this hotel. so, is that buda or pest? 🙂

If you fly into Budapest don’t take a taxi, pay a few hundred Forint and use the city minibuses, which will deliver you to your hotel and collect you as well. There is a desk in the arrivals hall.

good tip, thanks. the missus has been talking to friends that have been who said itd cost £25 taxi to get to the hotel. hopefully a few hundred forint is less than that 😀

i think i need to spruce up on the history of the place to understand it better, im not really too au fait with that.

thanks again

That’s Pest. I stayed round the corner from your hotel. Some nice restaurants and pubs around there (one really good one just on the eastern side of the city market whose name I have forgotten). Try some unicum too.

I like Budapest, must go back.

Ah, forgot to say, the train and metro in from the airport is pretty easy too.

Went about 10 years ago. Memento Park is well worth a visit – coach takes you a few miles outside of the city where they have loads of the old Soviet era statues that were removed from the City centre after the country was liberated.

The food was generally awful and very limited – on last day we found a Pizza Express which felt like heaven after several days of eating goulash.

It’s a shame you aren’t going later into the Summer – went in May last year I think, it was incredibly hot (not planned by me) but there were popup bars along the river, we found one being run from a van with a generator to power the sound system. It was great, a really relaxed way to sot by the river with a beer and watch the world go by. Staying in Buda it was also at the bottom of the massive hill where our hotel was at the top.

There was also a great little place called Love Burger, some nice bars and some interesting restaurants.

Also, did the Gellert baths, the fishermans bastion and surrounding parliament and the river tour. As mentioned, if you want to go into Parliament then book ahead, it’s very very busy.

well, its that time….. off next weekend. as well as this thread thereve been a few more on here, and im curious of a few things….

1. would google maps be useful for finding my way around?
szimpla kert for instance seems highly recommended. same with the baths (gellert and ‘the other one’) would it be a good idea to download the maps area now, try and find them on my phone and then save them somehow to favourites? and with data switched off (dont want roaming charges), maps will direct me there on foot, or at least show mw where they are and i can try and get a bus/tram in that direction?

2. is it still the best idea to look for a ‘city minibus’ desk at airport to take us to our hotel? (we’re at ibis centrum in pest if that makes any difference.

3. we land teatime friday, get back monday. what’ll be our best option for a 3 day go anywhere type transport? bus? tram? metro? get tickets at airport or in budapest?

4. currency. at 4000ish forints to the £, would we be better off trying to get lots of 5000 forint notes (tennerish) to mitigate the chances of a costly mistake/rip-off? im thinking ‘paying for a couple of beers and we only have a 100,000,000,000,000 forint note and end up getting £3.60 change’ type booboo.

thanks chaps

def gellert.

havent been for a few years, but reading this makes me want to go back and do it again

http://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/03/britain-needs-a-museum-of-communist-terror/

def gellert.

baths or hotel? the szczesny baths seem to be well recommended, if we had to choose just one, whats the difference between the two?

Gellert is ornate indoors. Szechenyi is mostly outdoors (and ornate).

There is an app called “City maps 2 go”. Check if they have Budapest (I expect they will). It’s an offline map, but still works with your phone GPS. Has all the top tourist sites for a city listed with links etc.

Nothing to add just marking as I’m going later this year

Used to stay in the Gellert and use the Baths.

I’d always stay there, it’s a bit of Eastern European history and pretty much central to all the sights.

FWIW i was there on the evening the Berlin wall came down, quite an odd feeling to the place for the weeks leading upto that and post that everything seemed to go into meltdown with both people and Government not quite sure how nor what to do about this impending Democracy that so may seemed to live by.

T’was a fabulous place back then, I do hope it’s not lost its charm and turned into to some StagFest/HenFest trashfest that Prague has both turned into and encouraged.

I’d recommend getting lost, it’s one of the only ways of absorbing you into any city. Ask for help/directions and all will be well.

Don’t suppose you have time to visit Lake Balaton? Shame, I bought a vinyard up there back in 93′ sold it at a loss in 99′ …

thanks. got my maps sorted now thanks. installed that ‘city maps 2 go’ just in case, but google maps is looking good for me so far. downloaded the area for offline use, saved all the recommendations above and from other threads as stars on the map so i can see where to go at a glance.

any advice on no’s 2, 3 and 4 please? ^^^^

cheers

EDIT: a quick glance at my map now shows pretty much everything is in ‘Pest’, theres only the baths on the ‘Buda’ side. that seem about right? nothing to see that side of the river?

Bump for the evening crew?

Statue Park is worth a visit, it appears to be called memento park now. its where they relocated all the old Communist statues that were around the city after the fall of Communist ideals in the late eighties.

Margaret Island is worth visiting on a nice day, just peaceful and quiet. You forget you’re in the middle of a river to be honest.

The walk up Andrassy is nice too, finish at heroes square and wander round the park behind.

There are some nice small museums around Buda castle as well, mostly war/military history etc but I like that sort of thing.

House of Terror museum is pretty sinister but also very good

St Stephens Basillica is also worht visiting for the view from the top.

I’d rely on tripadvisor for food and drink or recommendations from hotel staff, we found it a bit hit and miss but that was about eight years ago.

There is a minibus from the airport to the centre of Pest, its pretty cheap and you get a mini tour thrown in as the driver makes up the route based on the passengers destination.

I use the DK Eye Witness travel guides for European Cities, they are pretty good and the maps are easy to read.

You dont really need a metro card etc, statue park has a dedicated bus, buy a ticket from the tourist booth in the centre of Pest. Other than that, its pretty small in all honesty so walking is your best bet.

The largest note is a 20,000er, thats about £50, fine for dinner etc, some 10s and 5s will be fine for beers etc.

Finally, if you find a drink called Kappy, buy some, its an awesome, super-addictive, sunny delight style, orange juice drink.

On the Buda side make sure you go up the hill. A great view of the city below.

At the metro stations the machines sell multiple day tickets if you want them. I found the tram network pretty confusing, never really figured it out in the few days I was there. The metro network was fine.

I wasn’t that impressed with Momento Park. The statues are impressive, but there is no information on the history of any of them. And the lady on the front desk was very grumpy when we turned up with 25 students.

Try the chimney cakes for sale at some of the metro stations, they were really nice.

I’m not the biggest fan of the Gellert, if you had to choose just one I’d say “Chesney” every time, I’ll happily spend a whole day there. And try some palinka and langos.

Another bump as me and Mrs C are going later this year too.. thanks for the info 🙂

I use the DK Eye Witness travel guides for European Cities, they are pretty good and the maps are easy to read.

downloaded and reading through it now. one thing tho, it implies a lot of the baths are single sex, either separate baths, or separate days for men/women. can you confirm the szceszney baths are fine for me and the missus to both have a dip together?

thanks

Apart from the changing rooms everything is mixed at Szceszney baths. I think it is better than Gellert too. It has a lot more saunas, steam rooms and pools to try out.

well we’re here. first night just getting our bearings, a walk over the bridge to gellert hotel and a look at the danube. the ‘for sale’ pub was too busy to sit down so we didnt stay. had a bit of a crap meal near the hotel and have tried plum palinka and unicum. neither of which i liked particularly 🙂 think ill stick to me rum.

will try and suss out the transport tickets today and look at house of terror and some of the places recommended ^^^

thanks

As others have written, Hungary isn’t noted for its cuisine. Enjoy the city, walk around and keep your eyes on the stunning architecture; most of the old buildings have been restored now but you’ll still see a few with bullet holes in them. See if you can get in the street door of one of the big old apartment buildings and have a look at the inner courtyard and the apartments. Go to that big market opposite Gellert and go up to the mezzanine floor for a cheap aperitif.

If you like drinking beer try this place:

http://welovebudapest.com/clubs.and.nightlife.1/bars.1/eleszto

As others have written, Hungary isn’t noted for its cuisine.

I’m sorry but Budapest has some outstanding restaurants. Its one of the best value and consistently high quality culinary destinations I’ve ever been to. Amazing local wine too.

Just avoid all the tourist traps flogging goulash.

I recommend:

Borkonyha wine kitchen – Michelin star and not expensive.
Alabardos – more formal but proper old town charm.
Fausto’s – amazing home made pasta

The indoor market is great as previously mentioned.

Dunno where they went, but last night I went to the wedding feast of a couple who met while on separate weekend trips to Budapest. So hope for the best.

VERY strangely, my little sister is out there on a mini break right now too!

Anyway… Definitely visit the baths… Very enjoyable experience.

Do the normal tourist stuff of walking round the old town in Buda for sure, but Pest has a whole lot going for it too. I walked miles and miles on my own, past the parliament buildings, the train station, and strangely enough an enormous cyclist’s protest numbering hundreds of thousands of people all blocking the roads riding their bikes at no more than walking pace!

If you like meat and potatoes too (I do) the cuisine is fantastic, and it’s bloody cheap too!

Oh, and if you can get out of the city at all, pop down to Lake Balaton which is lovely, and it makes Budapest look expensive to eat by comparison…