Budapest- The reviews are in.

So had my second trip of the year to Budapest in Hungary, with my best friend. Whilst it sounds very similar to Bucharest, where I have been before, with Hungary and Romania bordering each other, these two city breaks couldn't be more different.
Abi and I have been on a city break before, so we knew what we are like. Thankfully she still thought it was ok to go on holiday with me. This time we were much more prepared when it came to the trip. We started looking for what we wanted to go visit a good two weeks before we went, and we started loosly planning our days there when we were there, still able to stay much more flexible.
Another interesting thing I found about Budapest was the amount of american tourists that were there. It felt like there were more american tourists there than there were british. It didn't bother me, but was quite surprised when you consider how far away the USA is. It did make me realise though how lucky we as europeans are. We have the option of having a mini break away to a different country, where most flights are barely more than 3 hours long. Some people don't have that luxury.
Before I get into the details of my trip, another thing I noticed was the pride of Hungarians and their food. You never wanted to try any other food, because there was so much choice of hungarian food that you never needed to. I bought a hungarian cookbook, so that I am able to attempt to recreate some of the amazing food that I tried whilst out there.
Day One
Abi and I had a pretty early start, with a 6am morning flight from Gatwick. We decided to get ourselves Budapest cards for the trip and got them at the airport. We got to our hotel at roughly 10:30 with our room ready, so we were able to go straight into our room and drop our stuff off, freshen up and get out into Budapest. We did get ourselves lost to start with, but once we understood where we were, it was much easier to work out our routes and what we were doing.
We spent the afternoon looking at St Stephen's Basilica, and went to the Panorama point as well. Even with my fear of heights, it was lovely to see the beautiful views of the city.
This was the point we both realised that Budapest was quite an expensive city. We needed to be a bit more crafty with our spending, and change some of our plans. Because of this, we decided to eat somewhere local for dinner. Also
meant we could have an early night to relax and catch up on some sleep.
Day Two
Went to the Hungarian National Museum in the morning, where we ended up spending a good two hours. There was so much different history to look at, it did scramble my brain slightly!
So after lunch we decided that we had explored a fair amount of the Pest side, and went over to the Buda side. We mainly used the castle bus on the Buda side, as it was free with our Budapest cards. We explored a craft market, and then headed over to the Budapest History Museum for the later afternoon. After feeling all museum'ed out, we headed back to our hotel, and decided to go back over to the Buda side again for dinner at Marxims.
After realising that a large glass of wine was only costing me roughly £1.50, we had a brilliant evening ending up in Mc Donald's with Mc Flurry's. Classy birds we are XD
Day Three
We were all museum'ed out from yesterday, so took a slightly more laid back approach to the day. We decided to travel further south and stumbled across the Central market that we were both interested in. One of my favourite parts of the trip. We did plan to take the water bus to say we had been on the river, but there was something that always happened to stop us from getting on.
So instead we decided to have a pit stop for a drink and head back over to the Buda side. We used the castle bus the most this day, going to the Fisherman's Bastion, saw St Matthias church, went to the 3D show about Hungarian history, the Hungarian flag, and Mary Magdalene tower.
Later in the afternoon we went to Szamos chocolate cafe and museum for a look around, and headed back to our hotel to get ready for our last night; where we went to Ven Hajo for dinner.
Day Four
Had a lazier morning having breakfast and getting packed ready to go. We decided to go back to the Central market to grab some more bits, and take advantage of the traditional street food that they had to offer in there.

To round it up, I really enjoyed my time in Budapest, and appreciated the history of Budapest and Hungary. It really would be a waste to go to this beautiful city and not be able to truly immerse yourself in the history and the wonderful food they have to offer. I would go back there in a couple of years time to be able to do all the things that we didn't get a chance to do this trip. A couple of tips if you were thinking of going:
- Take a fair amount of money. I took £130 worth for three nights, but ended up changing some of my left over Romanian currency to bump it up. I would recommend at least £175. Weirdly though the drink was pretty cheap. One night we got a glass of wine for under 50p!
- Get the Budapest card. Worth the investment if you are going to be seeing a lot of the different sites, and the map you get given is a godsend regarding metro stations.
- Watch out for the service charges out there. They add on a percentage to your bill as standard. Even when you just get drinks.
- The castle bus is brilliant, unless you can see a big group trying to get on. These are small buses, so one big group can take up a whole bus. There are buses over there as well that you can use that would be just as helpful
Some recommendations for your trip:
* Get a hotel slightly nearer to the centre of Budapest. Will save you time getting in and out
* Central Market is a really nice place to go for shopping and interesting presents.
* Marxim is a brilliant pub restaurant with that rundown sarcastic communist feel.
* Ven Hajo is a wonderful restaurant on the danube. Beautiful food and views of Buda.

Well that has rounded up Budapest, now the big trip to come- India!