Citytrip Budapest: a great weekend trip to this magical capital of Hungary

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Citytrip Budapest: Through the years I've had the honor to visit a whole lot of beautiful European cities. Places like Paris, Berlin, Prague, Barcelona, Brussels, London, Jerusalem, Kopenhagen, Naples, Rome, and many many more. But, strangely, Budapest was never on my to-go list…

And that is a remarkable thinking error because I presumed Budapest wouldn't be that great. I thought, wrongly, that it would be a typical dingy Eastern-European city with dingy characters, but boy was I wrong. My presumptions got a hefty beating because this Hungarian city is absolutely wonderful!

Buda & Pest

On the left side of the river Donau, you'll find the side of Buda and on the right side Pest. Since 1873 they together form the cozy city of Budapest. So far the history lesson of the day, it's time to tell you what makes Budapest so special and where you have to be to see all the highlights.

Within just two hours from Amsterdam, you'll arrive at the airport called BUD and within just 30 minutes from there, you'll be in the city center. Of course, you could go all-out on your flight and look up the cost to rent a private jet so that you start your trip off in some serious style. Plus, if you're going with a group, you can split the cost of the flight and all enjoy the luxury travel experience together. Once you are in Budapest, the public transportation is excellent, especially when you want to cross these bridges, but we highly recommend the Lime-scooters! With these fun scooters, you'll see so much more of the city than just the highlights. You'll see many stores, cafés, and restaurants that you wouldn't have seen riding the subway.

The city center is ideally constructed for tourist because of the location of all the highlights, they are all pretty close by. You can easily create an optimal route to see all the wonderful sightseeings. Within 3 days, you can see all of the major attractions of Budapest, without breaking a sweat.

An awesome day in Pest

On the plane/flat side of Pest, it's all lighthearted fun and coziness. You'll find many diverse shopping streets like the Andrassy Ut and Vati Utca where you'll find big brand stores and also many hip privately owned stores. You'll be yearning to enter every atmospheric cafe, bar, and restaurant. They all look so cozy and they truly demand your full presence. So that being said, we obviously enjoyed many pieces of pie, baklava, sandwiches, and unspeakable treats (seriously, this Hungarian language is like hocus-pocus 😉 )

We started our day with a lovely lunch in the posh New York Café. Writers, composers, and poets came together in this historical premise to debate about the fine arts. Now it's a lovely café with very expensive coffee and pie for the Instagram-tourist.

Together with my wife we walked all across the Andrasy Ut (thé boulevard for shopping at Ralph Lauren, Rolex, etc.) towards the Hungarian Opera, the impressive St. Stephen's Basilica (buy tickets to get on top of the basilica, the view is amaaaaazing!) and we also visited the surroundings of the Parlement. This iconic building, built to celebrate the 1000 years existence of Hungary, is a true sight to behold. Especially highly recommended to go and see in the late hours of the night. What an eyecatcher!

After gawking like a kid in Disneyland, we rode with our Lime-scooters towards the island on the Donau called Margerit-Sziget. This park looked just like Central Park and everyone was relaxing, eating and enjoying life as we should. It was such a nice sight to see all these people having a great time.

For dinner, we chose the very unique Jewish restaurant ‘Mazel Tov‘, where they make the most delicious hummus, baba ganoush, pitas, and kebab. The premises is kinda dingy, but they decorated it very smartly with plants and creative adjustments. Highly recommend!

Currency: forint (1000 forint = 3.5 dollars/ 3 euro)
Population: 1.8 million
English: Youngster pretty good, older people hardly any
Prices: about 60-80% of other western cities

A beautiful view from Buda

The next day we rode towards the powerful Donau. Here we found the robust Széchenyi Chain Bridge, a magnificent construction. This bridge kinda reminds us of the Brooklyn Bridge. You'll enjoy some very nice 360 degree views from the Chain Bridge from Buda and also of Pest. Across the bridge, you'll see the well-known sideway-trains that will bring you towards Buda Castle and the Fisherman's Bastion. Especially the last mentioned location is a must-see. The views from up the hill towards Buda are the best in town. You'll find the very best view in a small café below the Fishermen's Bastion.

We enjoyed many cups of coffee and tea in many of the thousands of coffee shops around Budapest (it's what they are famous for!) After these fun couple of hours (and drinking too much coffee) we went to the shopping streets of Pest looking for the Great Market Hall. The restored Great Market Hall is a mix of Hungarian dishes (meat, paprika, etc), vegetables, fruits, and tourist souvenirs. Get some cheese and sausage here! 😉

For the later hours of the night, we highly recommend Szimpla Kert. This is the ultimate WTF-bar. I can't explain what it's like, you'll have to see it for yourself…

And before I forget, go and buy ‘langos‘. It's a Hungarian style pizza, but very different in what it's made of. It's a very greasy bite, but so delicious! A must-try when visiting Budapest!

This amazing bucket-list location is waiting for you. But first, you´ll need a ticket up in the air!

Civil and relaxed

Budapest has a very chill, civil, relaxed, and cozy vibe. You'll feel safe here. There are hardly any bumms, scam artists, and weird-looking scummy people. It feels so much more civil than Prague, Amsterdam, and Paris. The city of Paris may be more posh and nice, but Budapest has a lot fewer weirdos walking around than in many praised world cities. It also doesn't stink that much (looking at you Rome!).

The Hungarians (who are mainly brown-haired people with brown eyes) are kinda grumpy and calm. They won't have long conversations with tourists because of the deficient English (some younger kids will though). That being said, they are very to the point and helpful with everything you need.

Chilling in the Hungarian bathhouse

The last day has arrived, it's time for a nice walk towards Heroes Square and through City Park. Both of these locations are not that exciting, but still, a nice sight when the sun is shining. The reason we went to these locations was that we are visiting Széchenyi thermal bath: a 130-year-old bathhouse!

This atmospheric premise reeks of old… euhm… minerals and salts?! We don't know for sure, but you can truly smell that you are in a very old building. And I don't mean that in a negative way, it's just a very unique characteristic smell. The creaking old doors and windows make you feel like you jumped back into time. When we got in our bathing suits, it was time to jump in the steaming warm water. It was 30 degrees Celcius / 86 degrees Fahrenheit!

After a couple of hours of bathing, hitting the crazy sauna, eating a nice kebab, and getting a Thai massage, it was time to head back home.

As you probably have read, we absolutely loved Budapest and would recommend this very affordable city to every couple, student, pensioner, and family. Do we recommend you also visit Budapest soon? Absolutely!

Pro tips

> Be kind to your feet and back and download the Lime-app. Scan the code on the scooter and drive around town at about 17 miles per hour. It's cheap and it's so much fun! Scooting around together is one of the highlights of this trip. Thank me later!

> Don't tip. They already charge you a 12% service charge. Only when the service is actually really good. Unfortunately, the grumpy people giving service were not that nice.

> Download the Bolt-app (formerly Taxify) to get your ride towards and back to the airport. They don't have Uber, but they do have official yellow cabs with one price. So, no scams with shady drivers. A ride from the airport to the city center is about 25 dollars.