After amazing days in Frankfurt, Munich, Salzburg, Vienna, and Bratislava, I took my last train ride over to Budapest. The train station was about a 15 minute drive from my hotel, which was right on the river – I highly recommend finding something along the river so that you can walk everywhere once you’re settled in.
I stayed at Lanchid 19 – the only SPG in the city, and it was absolutely incredible. It’s a Design Hotel, so it’s much more unique than most. It’s a very small hotel, with only 45 rooms over the 7 floors. The rooms are small, but the views are amazing. The front rooms face directly out onto the river and all rooms have floor to ceiling windows. My room on the 6th floor faced the opposite directly, and initially I was upset, but then I realized I had an incredible view of the castle that was pretty private. I spent a lot of time hanging out on my balcony watching everyone up on the castle viewing platforms.
After settling into my hotel, I found a restaurant online called Pest-Buda that looked really good AND was close to the restaurant, so I headed out in that direction. As I walked towards the restaurant, I walked past the Fisherman’s Bastion or Halászbástya, an absolutely beautiful viewpoint near the Matthias Church. It’s a great place to take some photos, and there are a bunch of cute cafes and gelato shops along the edges.
The restaurant itself is in the Pest-Buda Hotel, and has a restaurant with the same name. I finally broke away from eating sausage and beer for every meal, and ordered the Catfish Paprikash and a glass of Hungarian wine. The catfish is on a bed of Hungarian fried pasta with cheese and a tomato sauce and sour cream. It was SO good.
Afterwards I walked back and took some more photos along the way of the Matthias church and the Fisherman’s Bastion, before getting back to the hotel and spending a little time catching up on work before heading to sleep.
The next morning when I woke up, I spent some time just hanging out on the balcony enjoying the views. I tried to snap a photo of the castle while I was brushing my teeth so you can see how incredibly close I was! It was so relaxing and surprisingly super quiet for being in the middle of the city.
For the first time on my trip, I didn’t have drinks the night before, and I FINALLY felt like I’d adjusted to the time difference after about a week in Europe. In the middle of the Danube River, in the city, there is a small island called Margaret Island, with a 5.5k running track around the edges. Inside the island, there are incredible trails, a mini petting zoo, a water park, and old ruins. It was a beautiful day, and I loved getting out and being active for the first time in a while.
I snapped a few photos on my walk back to the hotel – the Parliament building is probably the most famous building people see when they talk about Budapest. Photos are best from the opposite side of the river, and the walk back from Margaret Island takes you right past it.
After getting cleaned up at the hotel, I decided to head up to the castle. There is a tram that takes you up to the castle, but of course when I arrived they were having a private event, so after a morning run, I then got some added hiking added in. The hike up was mostly stairs, but then at some point turned into a pretty treacherous climb up a sandy/rocky hill. At one point I had to hold onto the grass to keep from sliding back down!
At the top there are some absolutely incredible views, including my hotel in the middle photo 🙂
As you walk around the castle, it eventually leads straight to the Fisherman’s Bastion, Matthias Church, and the Pest-Buda Hotel and Restaurant, so if you only have one day, you can fit all of this in right after the castle.
I enjoy being scared every once in a while, and I’d heard there was a labyrinth underneath the whole area, where Vlad the Impaler was held at one point. The entrance is a little hidden and there is no cash desk at the front – you have to find the entrance and just head down the stairs and a short tunnel. After paying, you’ll have free reign to walk the entire length of the labyrinth, which actually takes about 30 minutes to get through. The coolest/creepiest thing about the whole experience, is that I didn’t really see any other people for the majority of the time I was walking around.
There was an exhibit along the labyrinth showing various famous operas from Hungary, and they had these super creepy cages with wax figures and opera music playing – it reminded me of the movie House of Wax, so that was a fun thing to have in my mind as I wandered about alone. At one point there was a maze of darkness that was pitch black, but luckily you could skip it if you wanted to. Some areas got dark enough that I couldn’t see anything, but for the most part you could see light up ahead, or it was lit up by the creepy blue lights above. Overall it was SUPER fun, and it’s also hilarious how shocked you are when you get back up into the light and sun above ground. I definitely suggest not missing this during your trip.
Afterwards I hiked back down to the river, and of course when I got to the bottom the Funicular (tram) up the mountain was working again, but I guess it’s good I got more exercise in.
Staying on the same side of the river, I walked all the way down to the church in the Gellert Hill Cave. It’s a super old church that was built into the sound of the mountain, which is pretty cool to see and also very quick. I spent more time looking at the views from the entrance than actually touring the church. You can plan to spend about 15 minutes total here.
Afterwards I walked across the bridge towards the Jewish Quarter of the city. Once you cross the bridge, you’ll be on the street that will take you essentially straight to the synagogue and you’ll be able to pass by the famous market on the way.
Literally right after you cross the bridge, you’ll see the Central Market of Budapest. The two floors are full of stands with fresh product, meat, and seafood, Budapest tourist trinkets, and upstairs, food stalls. I tried to get a langos, which is a famous Hungarian dish, basically a pizza on fried dough, but the only stand in the building had a like 1 hour line, so I took a few pictures and continued on my journey. Unless you want to buy a lot of souvenirs, this will be a short stop.
After the market, continue on to the Synagogue – the largest in Europe. I highly recommend doing the guided tour because you can really get the true history of the place from someone who is from the area and a member of the Synagogue. They offer tours in pretty much every language you can think of and start off with a full history and explanation of the day-to-day in the main Synagogue, then take you through the Cemetery and the Gardens. It was also very interesting to hear how many of the Jewish residents of Budapest feel about the many other commemorative statues in the city, like the shoes along the Danube. The entire tour takes about an hour.
Afterwards I headed over towards the Szimpla Kertmozi ruin bar, which I’d heard was one of the coolest in the city. Along the way I passed by Karavan Budapest, a super cool food truck park with a bunch of different food options, a bar truck, and picnic table seating. I FINALLY had a langos at a truck called Langos Burger. Instead of getting the burger I opted for a more traditional langos with the white sauce and arugula. It was delicious.
Afterwards, I walked a few doors down to the Szimpla Kertmozi bar. It’s basically a huge house with a bunch of different rooms and outdoor areas to sit and drink. I must have counted 4 or 5 bars as I walked through. One of the greatest things is that you can totally walk in and wander around without having to buy a drink, which was great since I had a few other ruin bars I wanted to check out before I had to leave for my flight.
In my opinion, the coolest of the bars I went to in Budapest, was Red Ruin, a communist themed bar that was much smaller and seemed to have more locals hanging out. It was pretty empty when I went around 6 pm, so I ended up hanging out with the bartender for a bit, learning more about Budapest. I also helped him change his mind about the best city in America – apparently a lot of Texans had visited this bar, so Houston was the number one city on his US wish list. We quickly corrected that.
The bar itself is cool, and the beers are even cooler – they have a bunch of craft beers, many of them local, and I was able to tell him what kind of beers I liked and then he selected some local stuff for me to taste. If I had been in the city longer, I definitely would have stayed here for a few more.
The last bar I wanted to check out was called the For Sale ruin. It was much more tourist than the other two and is back on the main road right across from the Central Market. The whole bar is covered with flyers, and anyone can take a paper, write something on it, and staple it to the ceiling or wall. In addition, the floor is covered in hay and peanut shells, as each table gets a huge bucket of peanuts for free. Overall it was cool, but I couldn’t help thinking about how much of a fire hazard the real candles were on each table.
I had to hurry back for my flight, so I walked back along the opposite side of the river from my hotel and saw the Little Princess statue, and this other super cool statue of Hungarian painter Ignác Roskovics. I wanted to make it a little further to see the Shoes on the Danube but unfortunately I was already running late for my scheduled taxi to the airport so I had to book it back across the river to my hotel.
So far in the trip I’d taken trains between every city, but the journey from Budapest to Krakow was a little longer, so I opted to fly. I was definitely not prepared to be on a tiny plane with propellers, so I had a little anxiety, but finally boarded and headed to Poland!
