Budapest Trip — Fashionably Kate

This past weekend a group of my friends and I took a trip to Budapest. I had not done a ton of research beforehand so I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I loved it! The city was unlike anywhere I’ve ever been and we had a lot of fun. It was a pretty quick trip, but we fit a fair amount in.

Friday

We flew in on Friday morning. From the airport we took a taxi our Air Bnb had arranged for us to our apartment. The apartment was located in the 7th District, which was a really convenient location close to the center of the city (the Starbucks right next door didn’t hurt either!). We were able to walk most places during the course of our trip and just took a few taxis using the app Bolt. After arriving, we set out to the Great Market Hall to have lunch. The market was a bit more quiet and low key than we were expecting (and in comparison to La Rambla in Barcelona for example), but it had lots of good authentic Hungarian food and some cute stalls selling trinkets too. After that we walked along the river and across the Chain Bridge to the “Buda” side and went to the Buda Castle. It’s free to look around the grounds and worth visiting for the super impressive views of the city. They have art and history museums in the castle as well. Afterwards we walked back across the river to the “Pest” side and came across some cute Christmas markets. We got Budapest’s famous dessert, chimney cakes, as a snack and they were delicious. We also came across Fashion Street (their main high end shopping street), which was all lit up and decorated for Christmas. At 6:30 we had a river cruise, which is a popular activity to do there, that we had booked online beforehand. It was a 1 hour long boat ride that cruised up and down the river, allowing us to admire all the major sights lit up. They also had headsets we could listen to so we were able to learn more about the history of Budapest. The boat was enclosed which was nice since it was so cold once it got dark! After that we headed to Hilda, a restaurant we had made a reservation at for dinner. It had a mix of seafood and meat dishes. I had salmon and it was really good, and the whole restaurant had a cute and cozy atmosphere. We were tired after our day of traveling and exploring so we just headed back to our apartment after dinner.

Saturday

On Saturday morning we went to the famous Szechenyi Thermal Baths, which we had prebooked tickets for. It’s definitely an interesting concept/experience, but we thought it was fun! After that we went to brunch at a restaurant called Cirkusz. It was so good and definitely worth the slight wait (which really wasn’t that long, considering we had a group of 7 and it was Saturday). Next door there’s an adorable bakery called The Sweet so of course we had to make a stop there too. That afternoon we explored more of downtown and saw the stunning Hungarian Parliament Building. We had dinner at Sao, which is a Thai restaurant we had made a reservation for. It was really good food and had a cool atmosphere. That night we went to Szimpla Kert, the oldest and largest ruins bar in Budapest. This is an absolute must to go to in Budapest. The place is huge and has multiple different bars within it, all serving different types of drinks. It was super eccentric and has a really fun and lively atmosphere. We had to line up for the security check at the door but it moved fast and it’s free to get in.

We left on Sunday morning so we just got up, grabbed coffee and headed to the airport. I wish we could have stayed longer but we had a great trip!