I would like to hear your opinion of Budapest, Mrs Caolam and I were thinking of going but read some bad reports about the place and gave it a miss. I had a mate who went but he was drunk most of the time he was there and didn't really form an opinion.
As promised here's my take on Budapest. I've just noticed how long it was so apologies in advance tl:dr Budapest is great.
Also this was very much a trip for my girlfriend and me, it will definitely not be to everyone's tastes. It'll read like a travel diary so you can get a full flavour of what's on offer and I'll put in links to the relevant websites.
General thoughts:
We went during the cold snap which resulted in lows of -12 degrees overnight, but the lowest we saw was -8 and that was really cold with the wind chill, but once the wind dropped it was all good from there with the multiple layers we had on. I would definitely recommend the off season to avoid the crowds, though the day trip options improve dramatically with nicer weather, and of course who doesn't enjoy having a drink in the sun?
The service in restaurants reminded us of Prague in that "service-with-a-smile" is not something they take part in. The service is absolutely fine but can often feel unfriendly if you're not used to it/expecting it. Everyone we interacted with can speak a good level of English so no worries on that count. Other than the really famous monuments/buildings a lot of Budapest looks run down/tired and they just don't have the money to fix them up, they're still recovering from the Soviet rule, and there are a lot of hidden treasures that I would never have found without a lot of research first.
If you have a phone with data on it then getting round the city on public transport is an absolute doddle with Google Maps, with trams especially being very frequent. We bought 7-day passes that cost £14 each, the only thing those passes don't cover is the bus from the airport to the city centre, but you can catch a different bus that drops you at the start of the Metro line and travel in on that. We only did this on the way back to the airport, we'd organised an airport transfer to take us to our Airbnb place, which was near the metro stop Corvin-negyed.
Tuesday
We started with a
3 hour guided minibus tour of the city, always like doing this sort of thing to get our bearings, there are loads out there and two different hop-on-hop-off bus companies if that's your preference. This took us up over the river to the hilly Buda part of the city, the most impressive part being the Fisherman's Bastion which is easy to get to yourself with public transport if you don't fancy the guided tours. We took the optional Matthias Church tour just to get out of the cold but weren't overly enamoured with it. Then back over to Pest and showed us Heroes Square and the famous thermal baths before dropping us at the Parliament buildings, apparently visiting Parliament itself is quite good (the second largest Parliament building in Europe after our own) though we didn't.
A quick trip to a very small
chocolate museum that overlooks Parliament, but unless you're a chocolate fanatic I'd swerve it as it is only about 3 rooms big - there's a much better
chocolate museum on the outskirts of the city but you have to book in advance and it's a fair old journey so we didn't bother.
We headed over to the
Holocaust Memorial Center which took longer than I thought it would, everything is in Hungarian and English and doesn't gloss over Hungary's part in what happened.
Almost next door is a very tucked away
Ruin Cafe which serves the best hot chocolate I've ever had in a very cosy/romantic atmosphere, requires prior booking at busy times as it isn't the largest place.
Wednesday
The
Zwack Unicum museum/brewery tour was up first, it was nearly just us but a Russian guy joined at the last minute and as my girlfriend is learning Russian we ended up hanging out all day with him. The drink itself wasn't to any of our tastes, but I can imagine it being quite nice after 4 pints. The tour was started with a 20 minute film about the history of the company/family followed by a guided tour of the distillery and then a small museum section where you're left to your own devices. We booke din advance to guarantee an English speaking tour.
After that we headed to the
House of Houdini which is split into two parts little museum with a guide who tells you about Houdini's life and acts, but I think I knew more about Houdini than the guide did, and a live magic show which we all enjoyed. Unless you're into magic I'd swerve it.
Budapest Pinball Museum next which after a roughly £8 entry fee you can play any of the 300-odd pinball/arcade machines for free for as long as you like, you get a wristband that means you can leave to have something to eat and then come back for more. We stayed around 2 hours, would have been longer if they had a bar, but soft drinks only.
We decided to head to the most famous Ruin Pub in Budapest, called
Szimpla Kert, which is set over two floors and is actually about 5 bars and a couple food places in total so if you don't like one you can just move onto the next. Really nice vibe in there but can see it getting rammed in busier periods of the year. There are a whole host of Ruin Bars to go and visit in Budapest though so there will always be another one.
Thursday
We had some time to kill this morning before a lunch reservation so we found a cool place called
Zoo Cafe where they bring a succession of animals to your table while you're enjoying a coffee or hot chocolate, they do serve some food but not sure I'd trust that. A small animal is given to you and after a briefing on how to handle them the waiter just walks off, leaving the animal completely with you to pet/photograph as you see fit. After a couple of minutes they swap it out for another, in total we handled a gecko, snake, chameleon, bearded dragon, guinea pig and rabbit alongside the 8-10 cats that have free reign to wander about the cafe. There was also a cockatoo flying around that landed on me completely unannounced, I was advised it doesn't bite but does steal things so I should watch my glasses.
After that we had lunch at
Comme Chez Soi, which is a great place that can only seat maybe 20 people and definitely needs a reservation otherwise you aren't getting a table. They were very proud of all their awards and there was barely any wall that didn't have a framed award on it. The service and food was exceptional, with lots of freebies thrown in: a small platter of bread and hams, a sorbet and chocolate and three free rounds of drinks, two sweet wines and a limoncello. In total the meal came to just over £40 and took about 2 hours in total.
We worked off the food by playing a round of mini golf at
Neonis where the gimmick is the black-lit surroundings, you are given glasses that turn all the paintings 3D. It was really good fun, not too busy at all, though is a bit out of the way.
Friday
We had another tour today to
Szentendre, a place recommended by my Hungarian colleague, a little Artist's Village maybe 30 minutes drive from Budapest. The tour guide for this one made it, and we happened to be the only people on the tour so had a personal guided tour. We were given 1 and a half hours in the town which doesn't really give you much time to do much other than shop. If you want some time to really explore and visit one of its many museums you'd be better off catching the train and deciding yourself when you want to leave. The guide admitted that in the Summer it gets packed and isn't such a nice place but local artists start lining the street and paint/flog their wares so that can be nice. The tour I went on does provide a river cruise back to Budapest but I went in the off season so instead was just driven back to central Budapest
Miniversum was the next stop, basically paying to see a really detailed train set, split into areas covering the major cities in Budapest and then Austria & Germany have their own dedicated areas. If you aren't as nerdy as my girlfriend and me then it isn't worth the entrance fee, but this was my girlfriend's favourite thing we did.
The final attraction we went to was the
3D gallery that if you're fine feeling like a bit of a tit and throw yourself into them can come out with some pretty good photos. But seems quite expensive for what it is and my girlfriend said she went to a much better one in St Petersburg.
