Take a bath with 1,000 strangers in Budapest Hungary
always thought Budapest would be like Prague, but darker, more brutalist architecture and ennui. It’s completely different with incredible architecture like the Parliament building – amazing seen from across the river as seen up close. Not even your widest angle camera lens will capture it all. At night, visiting the grounds when lit and the grounds almost empty is stunning.
Thermal spas have a long tradition starting with the Romans. You can read about my visit to the excellent Széchenyi Baths here.
1. Things to see
We stayed in the artistic and beautiful Baltazar hotel. It looks great in your photos but in practical terms was a bit of a nightmare. Every time you wanted to get into the city you had to walk up / down an incredibly steep (and long) hill or call for a taxi. In hindsight, we would have stayed somewhere closer to town, maybe less aesthetic but easier to get around – so that you’d feel you were ‘in’ Budapest instead of overlooking it.
If you have a penchant for zoos, or just seeing beautiful wild animals kept in cages a trip to the zoo is in order. It takes most of the day to see the zoo however, It’s one of the oldest zoos in Europe and has over 1,000 species. It opened its doors in 1886. That’s a pretty long run.
Sometimes the best parts of traveling are the accident discoveries. We were walking through a park and came across a series of large trampolines. You rent them for 10 min at a time. Having never been on the giant trampoline it’s a great experience for 30 min to jump around like an idiot although it’s a learning experience to understand it’s okay to fall. Of all the things I saw and did in Budapest, this one random thirty minutes on a wet day was my favorite.
Budapest also has its share of giant cold war statues. With giant army men wrestling crocodiles or other giant army men. You have statues with their arms flung up to the sky in victory and other statues in mortal combat with each other. They all look like replicas of the plastic army men toys blown up to supersize and are fun to pose by even if you’re not sure of the more serious history they convey.
This is also a city with bridges, connecting both parts of the city into one. Since we were on the one side we had to cross daily to get to the main part of the old city.
If you’re looking for something different there’s also a fun pinball museum. You can walk to it, but it’s a long walk – or take the tram – it’s a short tram. Inside are 130 pinball machines from the early1930’s and 1940’s all the way up the latest. One ticket lets you play as many games as you like until they close. I had never played pinball before, but it was a great place to try something different for 2 or 3 hours.
Széchenyi Baths
Beautiful but remote
The zoo, trampoline, and pinball
On the Chain bridge
Fisherman’s Bastion
Sitting pink in the rain
More city
View from the top
2. Nightlife
We were a little tired by this time on our trip. We had been through over a dozen cities and additional nightlife and more booze weren’t high on the agenda. Still, they have a lot going on in Budapest. Under the Chain Bridge – connecting Buda to Pest there’s a nightly party serving beer and cocktails with music, you can sit right on the edge looking down at the Danube river and enjoy the night.
We also ended up at very strange complex of maze-like rooms in a club called ‘ruin bars’ where they take over large series of old soviet buildings, kept the architecture and courtyards intact and turned them into huge sprawling interconnected clubs. Each room and building is. a little different, but you’re sure to find a bar, bathroom and plenty of couches. Plenty of niches to cozy up in, or big rooms to dance. From 80’s retro to techno or drum & bass.
Drinking under the bridge
Clubbing and live bands
3. Spend
As always, you reach a certain point where your carry-ons filled to the brim with souvenirs and treasure. To the point you have to kneel on the suitcase to zip it closed. It’s at this juncture the trinkets and junk each city sells becomes a lot less enviable and you drop out of the zombie-consumerist-mode ‘must have that Budapest shot glass’… So Budapest for us was pretty cheap. We left with just a few magnets and a few pounds of digital photographs.
4. Food
After awhile all cities start to run together – the food we had, for the most part, was good but average. Buddha Bar is the exception. In part because the drinks make the food go down so much smoother.
Just foods!
5. Getting Around
Because our hotel was up a giant mountain (think: Everest), we ended up taking multiple taxis daily. If you find a more sensible hotel where you don’t need to acclimate at Basecamp… then you should be able to walk around most of the city. Failing that, there’s an extensive tram system, and busses.
6. Costs
On par with other EU cities. If anything Budapest is cheaper than Prague. At the end of the day, a beer can only cost so much, and you can only drink so many beers.
7. Tips
Stay central to the things you want to see and where the action is. Don’t get lured in by fancy Instagram hotels.
