Budapest!

Have you wanted to visit a place which is cultural, cheap and captivating? Budapest is for you!

Budapest is often described as the “Little Paris of Middle Europe”. It has outstanding monuments and historical places, which represent it’s 1,000 year culture. It is divided into two parts: Buda and Pest. It has a lot to offer, and is perfect for those who want to sightsee.

We stayed in the hotel  Royal Boutique Hotel – which was ideal and quirky. The highlight of the room was that the shower was a wall in the room – which was unique.

KFC Pizza – on the same street as our hotel.

It was located in Keleti – which was a perfect travelling location. When we first arrived into the area we was a bit concerned as there were groups of macho Hungarian men hanging outside our hotel. Also the road is quite narrow, with houses on top of each other. We had arrived in the night though, so we checked in and got an early night.

The next day we went exploring! Keleti train station is beautiful and I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The building is huge with two horse statues, and a large clock. You could get a train ticket for so cheap. I would worn you that unfortunately there was a lot of homeless, especially on the night time (which was sad to see.) When we were buying train tickets on more than one occasion a homeless person would ask us for money, normally seeing the change from the ticket.

The only thing is that it’s one of the least English friendly in terms of content communication. Normally they have the text in their language, and converted in English – but this was rarely done in Budapest. This meant that with the assistance of Google I’d have to try and work out the route and location in Hungarian – so if you want to learn their language, then there’s no better way right?

We went to Fisherman’s Bastion. This was a great cultural landscape to visit and I highly recommend it. Statues and heights that were breath taking. We saw Hungarian ladies wearing traditional vibrant outfits, a tuk tuk (which reminded me of Thailand), a couple in ballroom attire having their pictures taken and even a wedding! It was busy and beaming with culture – yet it was so spacious that it wasn’t crowded.

We then took a short walk and found some more wonderful sites, one including a memorial.

We then came across Budapest castle.

We then came across another wedding, but this time was located at the peak of the building, with loads of chairs – it’s a shame we couldn’t see this.

We continued walking and saw a model having her pictures taken in the barn – there was so much photography because I’ve never seen a place so photogenic.

We walked in this underground bit and it was very spooky – ice cold and you could hear a pin drop. I was in a rush to get out!

On a rainy day, we came across Shoes on the Danube Bank  – which is a quiet memorial to holocaust victims killed by the Arrow Cross fascists in late World War Two.  Seeing the shoes lined along the bank is quite chilling and touching. We came back nearer to the evening, and loads of people gathered around and lit candles.

This is a short walk away from Parliament – we did walk here and want to get tickets, but they had sold out on the days we wanted, so we was unable to do so. The building was huge and if we went back I’d book the tickets in advance to make sure we visit here!

Hungarian food = delicious! I could eat the food all day, every day. It reminded me of Turkish/greek cuisine. My favourite would have to be their chicken kebabs.

Site seeing bus! We brought tickets for a ‘bus of budapest’, where they provided headphones and you could chill. It was raining and we didn’t want to miss out so we done this to pass the time. We had already seen most, so didn’t benefit from this greatly. It’s could if you can’t walk around and want to hear about the history of Budapest.

Quirky designs!

Escalators for dayssss!(literally)

Trofea Grill Downtown – 10000% recommend! – however there is two, so make sure you go to the correct one! (unlike us initially). We hadn’t tried food in the first one, so can’t rate this. The first one we went to took hours and was a sketchy part of Budapest, we arrived when it closed – so this didn’t help. In the end we got a taxi to the main one and it was amazing! Unlimited food and unlimited prosecco! It was so busy even though we went in September. We only got a table because it was so late – so I would recommend booking a table in advance. There was an English family on our left and a single elder dutch man on our right – there was a huge mixture of cultures which was good and it was a positive atmosphere. They say that you can have the table for two hours.

Szechenyi Thermal Bath Spa = The highlight! There are quite a few thermal spa’s in Budapest, but we only tried this one, as from the reviews it seemed like the larger, more popular one. This was so cheap, roughly about £15 and you get to stay here as long as you want (we stayed here all day.) They had green tea spa pools, freezing cold ones, sauna and outside space. This was amazing and what I’d do to have one of these in England! We were there most of the day and if we had longer would have came back. I would say however that the drinks and food is expensive. We got a tram to here and it didn’t take long at all.

After three jam packed days we were on route home! We had an amazing time but after all the walking we needed some rest. I would highly recommend visiting here! I am eager to go back (when funds allow) lol.