10 things to do in Budapest

                                                                            In September I spent three days in Budapest, I enjoyed exploring the city and thought I'd share 10 things to do in Budapest. I've tried to include a range of activities and not just the usual things so hopefully this will be useful for anyone planning a trip to Budapest. 

1. Go to a thermal bath

You can't google Budapest without a picture of one of the many thermal baths popping up. Probably the most famous of the baths is the Szechenyi baths. This is also were Sparty is located. I didn't actually get to visit the baths in the day which is my biggest regret from my visit to Budapest. If I ever go back visiting one of the baths is top of my list. 

2. Go to the local market 

                                                                    There are a few markets in Budapest. We visited the central market. There's plenty of local food to try, slightly overpriced. I'd recommend sharing a dish as the portions are quite large. There's also food stalls and souvenirs.

3. Visit the House of Terror museum

The name of this museum is probably a bit misleading, it's not a house of horrors type museum. In fact, it's a museum with information about the fascist and communist regimes in Hungary. Two people recommended this to us and said it was a very good museum. We unfortunately didn't get chance to visit but if I go back it will be on my to do list. If you want to do something a bit more historical then you should try this out. I wish I'd gotten a chance to visit as I don't feel like I learnt as much about Hungary's history compared to other countries I've visited such as Poland.

4. Explore Buda and Pest

Budapest used to be two separate cities separated by the river. The river still separates the two halves but now they are one city. We stayed on the Pest side. The Citadel and Fishermans Bastion are on the Buda side, while the Basilica and Parliament are on the Pest side. This side seems to be were the main city is while the Buda side is slightly more residential.  It is very easy to go between the sides, which are split by the Danube river, either by the metro or walking over one the bridges.

5. Go to a ruin bar

I wish we'd had time to visit more of these and visit them in the day, as well as, the evening. We visited Szimpla, one of the more well known ruin bars on our way to Sparty. There were tonnes of different rooms to explore and a photo booth which we obviously took advantage off even though people kept trying to photo bomb us. The photo booth cost around £2 but I love them so much!

6. Climb the Citadel

There are various ways to walk up to the Citadel. We walked up on our first day in Budapest, considering it was October it was pretty hot, it was over 30 degrees! Thankfully, a lot of the walk was in the shade. The views were amazing. However, I didn't love the amount of bugs at the top. One of my friends called them sting bugs but I'm still unsure if they were or if she'd just made the name up! Other than the bugs it was a great place to sit and relax whilst enjoying the views.

7. Go to Fishermans Bastion

                                                                                            The Fishermans Bastion is both beautiful and slightly odd. I say odd because the architecture is so different but it doesn't feel old it feels a bit like it was made for disneyland. However, it's still worth a visit and you can visit for free! The toilets cost money and I think some of the view points do as well but the over all area is free to walk around. There's a restaurant which overlooks the river that has lovely views. We ate here but I found it expensive, the food was traditional but made for tourists. I'd say skip it or just have a drink. We ate there because we really needed food but in hindsight we should of eaten before we walked up. There are plenty of picture opportunities and it's a great place to relax.

 

                                           8. Go for brunch

There's plenty of options for brunch in Budapest. We only tried two of them out. There's also a great range of restaurants in general. We found a really good sushi restaurant and while I don't usually eat at the same place twice (because obviously I want to try as many places as possible) we returned to this restaurant the following day. Partly because one of my friends hadn't come with us the first time and want to try it out and partly so I could eat all the sushi again!

                                            9. Visit the Parliament Building 

We crossed the river to get a picture of the Parliament Building. We didn't spend that much time looking at it but it's more of a have a quick look and take a picture thing to do. I like these because they're quick and can be done in between other sights. We stopped off before making our way up to the Fishermans Bastion.

I would have loved to see it at night when it was all lit up but we never got a chance, if you can I'd definitely recommend seeing it at night as well because it looks stunning!

 

10. Go to Sparty!

I saved this for last because it's probably not to everyone's taste. Sparty is basically a night out in the thermal baths. There's music, drink and a lot of drunk people. We spent so long researching this and whether it was worth going to. We wanted to go but there was a lot of negative reviews of it. Even on our travels we got mixed reviews about the event. Although, it seemed most people who had a negative story to tell us hadn't been to the event themselves and had rather heard it from someone else. We opted not to buy tickets in advance and got them from our hostel. My personal opinion is that Sparty is nowhere near as bad as some of the reviews suggest.

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Sophie

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