Until last month, if you'd have asked me what to expect from Budapest, I wouldn't really have had a clue. But boy did it surprise me. Perhaps it was the beautiful architecture, the fact that we stayed in the coolest hostel ever, or the nights out that we had - but this city is one that I'm so glad we made the effort to visit, and probably ended up being my favorite of them all. In fact, we're already planning our return! Unfortunately, due to bad planning on our behalf/searching for the cheapest flights, their timings meant that we only got one full day in this amazing place - we managed to cram a lot in though and I'm already dreaming about next time. For now though, I thought I'd sum up our whistle stop tour for anyone else on a first time visit, and briefly mention the places that we plan on visiting next. As always, let me know if there's anywhere that I should add to our list!
- We had one day to cover as many sights as humanly possible, and whilst we didn't end up covering that much, it was a nice introduction to the city. The castle is worth a trip up to for the beautiful views across the river (and are currently holding a Picasso exhibition up there), but you can soak in a lot from a general wander up and down and around the pretty winding streets. Bikes are also available to hire, which would have been a lovely experience if not for our inability to work the machines in Hungarian. After a healthy lunch onlooking the river, we finished the day by relaxing in the baths - a well earned break after the endless walking and dancing over the previous days. We were planning, but didn't quite get time, to also visit the memorial, so that will definitely have to be on the list for next time.
- Travel was fairly easy and we managed to do nearly every trip on a mixture of buses and trains. Travel cards were available in the airports, so we stocked up on those, and the only near miss was the night bus on our return. In hindsight, catching it at 3 in the morning after a night out maybe wasn't the best idea. One thing that I would recommend though is to avoid taking taxis wherever possible. We were given a £24 fee for what would have been far less than a 10 minute walk - but being a group of young girls it may just have been us that faced the problem of being ripped off wherever we went.
- Surprisingly, Budapest was the city that offered the most vegan options, which I was pleasantly surprised about. There were a ton of middle eastern shops called Hummus around where we were staying, I'm assuming it must be a chain which was the perfect fuel for the start of our day, even though pita, vegetables, humous and falafel aren't maybe your typical breakfast. For the equivalent of 80p, you really can't beat the quality. For our final meal out, we found an almost market/restaurant type area where we could dine under fairy lights and reminisce about the good times we had had.
- As Budapest was our last city, we tried to get in as much partying as possible before heading home. Starting with the hostel, the Hive Party Hostel, which was probably the nicest that we stayed in of all three locations. The rooms were clean, the design was cool, the location was amazing, so was the price ... I could go on and on about the perks for a long time, it was even nicer than some hotels that I've stayed in. The bar downstairs was also a big plus point and a nice place to meet some other people. The first night we arrived quite late so decided to head straight for the clubs instead of the pubs. Armed with the recommendations from many friends, we set off to Club Instant, which was quite possibly one of the best and weirdest nights out of my whole life, but definitely a place that I would recommend. The ruin bars are also worth a visit for their cool decorations and we'll be trying to get some spaces on the party boats and bath parties next time we visit.
Have you ever been to Budapest? What did you think of the city?
