The Budapest Travel Guide

I recently spent four days in Budapest with my gals to celebrate our 21st birthday's and we had an absolute whale of a time. Now, Budapest is definitely not one of my favourite places I've ever been but with swimming baths, cocktails, good food, and sunshine, what more could you ask for on a girl's holiday? For our flights from Gatwick and three nights in an Airbnb we paid just over £90 each, which, if you ask me, is an absolute steal. We booked the trip in January and I can't believe how quickly it's been and gone?!... For this travel guide I thought I'd just run through what we did each of the days we were there, discuss the good, the bad and the ugly, and give you any tips or recommendations that we picked up along the way! 

Sound good? Dive on in...

Day 1 

We arrived in Budapest at about lunchtime, following a delicious 4am wakeup, and took the 100E bus from the airport straight into the city centre. It costs about £2.75, takes 40 minutes or so, and the stop you're most likely looking for is Deák Ferenc tér. We then walked to our Airbnb (which was an apartment in a questionable looking block), dumped our bags, and headed out for a wander. For lunch, we just went to a little Italian restaurant up one of the side streets and sat in the sun eating pizza. We had a bit more of a wander before heading back to the apartment to chill before going out that evening. 

Now, the apartment itself was actually really nice. It had a large lounge that we put all the beds in and slept in, a huge mirrored wall that was perfect for getting ready and the bathroom was nice and clean. Looks can be deceiving my dudes, looks can be deceiving. 

Once we were ready we headed out for dinner. Having spotted a Hard Rock Cafe on our wander around we opted to go there for our first night. I've been to a fair few Hard Rock's in my time so I've sort of made it my mission to visit one whenever I'm in a new city. I had my usual order - the hickory BBQ bacon cheeseburger. It was just as good as always, a solid 10/10. We had a few cocktails in Hard Rock - accompanied by A LOT of staring from pervy men sat at the bar, ewwww- before heading out on the town. 

Our first stop was Szimpla Kert ruin bar: the first ruin bar in Budapest. Now, we weren't particularly overwhelmed by this one, so stayed for one drink, stood around for a bit with everyone else and then decided to head for somewhere with a little more going on... Enter: Instant. Instant is the biggest ruin bar in Budapest and they're really not joking around, it's huge! There are 20 different rooms with all sorts of different music, vibes etc and we had such a good time there. One thing to note - you pay a cup deposit as part of your drink bill which isn't particularly clear, then, when you've finished your drink, take it to the cloakroom to get your deposit back!

Day 2 

Once we were all up, dressed and ready we headed out for breakfast. We'd spotted a really pretty looking restaurant the day before and opted to go there for breakfast. The place in question is A La Maison and the decor is stunning. Think marble tables, pink flowers, velvet chairs and gold accents - it really was an Instagrammer's dream. The food was really really tasty - I had the strawberry pancakes. The one thing that let it down was the service. The staff were not particularly helpful, one might say they were verging on rude... (That being said, it didn't stop us from returning on our last day, we just knew what to expect this time around!)

We then walked across one of the many bridges to Buda and climbed up to the Liberty statue. The views were of the city were fab, so I'd definitely recommend going if you have the time. Once we'd made it back to Pest, we grabbed our swimming stuff and headed to Szechenyi Baths on the metro.

Having bought our tickets we made it inside to the changing rooms and lemme tell you, we were a bit confused. The inside of the baths is not very clearly laid out, and the changing rooms are mixed, so we did look like fish out of water trying to work out if we were in the right place or not.

Included in the entry ticket is an electronic wristband that locks the lockers, so we got changed, threw all of our stuff into a locker and headed outside. It was SUCH a nice sunny day, so, unsurprisingly the baths were rammed. Those pictures you see on Instagram of people pretty much having the place to themselves? Nu-uh. The water was really nice and warm, and we spent a good couple of hours or so just sat in the water in the sun. 

Once we'd had our fill, we got the metro back to central, bought an ice cream and just sat in the sun by a fountain. We then walked back to the apartment, got ready for the evening and headed to Perfetto for dinner. The food was so so good, so I'd highly recommend checking it out if you're after Italian food in Budapest. 

Day 3 

Today's breakfast location of choice was Stika. I had pancakes again, shock, and they were really good. They had a choice of three toppings and I went for salted caramel, yum. 

We then wandered over to the Parliament Building which was by far the most impressive building we saw in Budapest. After taking a few pictures, we then walked along the riverside and across the Chain Bridge to Buda Castle. Now, I'm not sure if this is an unpopular opinion or not but we really weren't that impressed by the castle. I mean, it was impressive but we definitely decided it looked better from afar than when you saw it all at once. 

Just a short walk away from the castle is the Fisherman's Bastion which looked a lot like something out of Harry Potter. We had yet another wander around and then found a little outdoor restaurant and finally got round to trying some authentic Hungarian cuisine. We had goulash and garlic langos, and the latter was definitely my favourite - just imagine deep fried bread covered in garlic. (It's way tastier than it sounds!) 

After crossing the bridge again, we went to St Stephen's Basilica and paid to go up to the observation deck. Now, it is quite a lot of stairs - and very high up - so definitely not for anyone with a fear of heights. The view of the city was amazing, the streets just kept on going and going and going. We then made it back down to the ground and sat in a park, chatting in the sun.

We got ready to go out once more an then headed to the igloos, or 360 bar Budapest as it's more commonly known. It's a rooftop bar with a whole series of igloo tents that you can have dinner and drinks in. The food menu is in no way extensive, so we all had the burger, and it was pretty good indeed. We then stayed for a cocktail - or four - chatting as the sun set.

Day 4

Aaaah, our last day. We headed back to A La Maison for breakfast and this time I had the banana french toast. It was soooooo good! After breakfast, we wandered around a lot of the souvenir shops looking at the various fridge magnets, snowglobes and boob-shaped shot glasses each one had on sale. Once we'd all bought a few bits of touristy toot we walked to another park and just chilled in the sun a bit more. For those of you wondering, it was about 21 degrees most days we were there, so we really were lucky with the weather. We went back to the apartment, grabbed our bags, and took the 100E bus back to the airport. We ate at the airport, flew back to London and like that it our four days in Hungary were over...

Have you been to Budapest?