City of spas (and bars)

Good things come to those who wait. And in this case, that wait was over 4 years long, since that's the point at which me and Sophia decided our next holiday destination (after going to Prague together) would be Budapest. Obviously then Covid happened and we didn't manage to plan it last year, but this year, the three of us (with Justin too) finally made it to the Hungarian capital. And let me tell you; it was more than worth the wait.

Good news: the flights were pretty cheap with Wizz air from Birmingham (although if you can, go with just a tiny hand luggage as Wizz are extortionate on the luggage front). Bad news: the flight times were absolutely crap. We didn't fly until the evening which meant we landed in Budapest at around 2am local time. Naturally, that didn't leave much time for activities on the first day, but we got checked into our apartment and were really impressed with it. We stayed at the 7Seasons Apartments and it was so perfectly located and really cheap too.

We were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next morning and we headed straight out to explore. Something I loved about Budapest is that there were loads of Scandi-style brunch restaurants that offered all day menus. Perfect if you're anything like me and love brunch food but don't want to have to wake up at 8am to be able to get out and enjoy it.

As is usually the case in any new city, the first stop on the itinerary was the main cathedral. St Stephen's basilica was seriously beautiful and the gilded gold ceilings inside were incredible. Better yet, you could go out onto the balcony at the top and the views of the city from there were amazing. The sun even came out for us in what can only be described as perfect timing. I felt like Budapest would be quite a cool edgy city so I tried to go with more cool, casual outfits (rather than the girly, pretty outfits I reserve for places like Italy and France). These cargos were a new purchase from DTT (on ASOS) and I love that these kind of trousers are in fashion because they're just so comfy.

If you were an insufferable female lead in an indie movie, what would your defining personality trait be? Mine would be my love of rooftop bars. Which, unless you're a serious newbie here, you probably knew already. Naturally the next stop after the sun coming out, therefore, was the High Note Skybar. It has a near-perfect view of the basilica and the most amazing quirky cocktails named after attractions in Budapest (we made sure we all got a different one to try a selection). Although the best part of all was being able to take our jackets off and sit basking in the sun at the end of October!

Then we went on a little wander down the river and hit a load of the main sights on the way; the parliament building, the Shoes on the Danube and the chain bridge. The architecture in Budapest was absolutely beautiful and I see why it's one of a few cities nicknamed 'Paris of the East'.

We rounded off our day with a little trip around the Ferris wheel, which we'd managed to time absolutely perfectly as we were on it just as the sun was setting. I don't think it could've worked as perfectly if we'd pre-planned it.

Speaking of pre-planning, we had actually been quite organised with this trip (a contrast to my other recent ones) and pre-booked one thing for each day we were away. Sundays activity was a river cruise with bottomless prosecco for... £20! Insane value. So after getting ready for the evening and grabbing a quick dinner (tapas is always a good idea), we were all aboard and off down the Danube. The city is one that really comes alive at night, in terms of all of the main buildings are beautifully lit and really pop against the dark. I'm so happy we got to see both in the day and at night. As for the bottomless prosecco? That was a definite bonus and definitely bottomless - the staff were like machines with the topping up!

Basically the free-flowing drinks and amazing value for money just continued into the night (and the early morning). Notably, we tried the local shot (horrible but atleast I managed mine, unlike Justin and Soph), we went to a massive nightclub which had loads of cool different rooms and was open until 6am, and we managed to get a round of 3 drinks for only £6.66. All in all: a great success.

Because of the aforementioned activities, we were feeling a little delicate on Monday. Luckily, we had a more chilled out day planned, starting with brunch. We were blessed with the weather once again so we sat outside and ordered absolutely massive drinks to speed up the recovery process.

Our plan for the day was to do the Széchenyi baths, which are a little outside of the main other stuff in the city; about a 30 minute walk. And what a beautiful walk it was. Plus it was actually a bank holiday in Hungary (Revolution memorial day) so there was a concert that we got to enjoy on the way. The baths themselves are located in the city park which has some other cool buildings like a castle and the gatehouse tower, which we got to admire on the way.

If you go to Budapest, go to the Széchenyi baths. Plain and simple. It was such a fun experience and we had the best time. We pre-booked our tickets on GetYourGuide (which is what I used for all our activities - all linked throughout). You can either do a locker ticket or a changing room one for only an extra couple of pound - do the changing room! You get it booked for just you so can leave all your stuff in there and then it's ready and waiting when you go back to get changed. The baths are really cool and there are actually a number of different ones inside too which I didn't get any pictures of but we did sample a few. Obviously all of them are pretty much the same so we preferred the outdoor ones in the sunshine, and it also had a lazy river which kicked in every so often and was good fun to swirl round. The only thing that could've made the day better was a couple of cocktails so we tentatively risked some hair of the dog; I feel like a mojito is usually a pretty safe bet.

Something that I had weirdly not read a single thing about during my pre-holiday research was the BalloonFly, but when we spotted it from the baths, we thought it'd be good fun. It's not an actual hot air balloon, but basically goes up high on a cable and you can walk round to see the view from every angle. The views were amazing and while it was a bit of a gimmick, it was well worth doing. I wouldn't travel all the way to the park for it, but if you're there anyway then definitely tag it on like we did. It was also nice to see the city from above at night. We were obviously going for a every combo of angle and lighting by this point, having done the ferris wheel and the boat too.

We didn't have anything booked for that evening so we had more of a leisurely dinner in a local restaurant. When I go away I always like to try and eat as they do in the country and Hungary was definitely a meat-and-potatoes kind of country so that's what I went with!

Something we'd heard was a must-do in Budapest was the ruins bars. Basically there are a number of bars that have opened in derelict buildings in the old district, and none of them is as famous as Szimpla Kert. So we figured that was the place to be. It was super cool and was actually like multiple bars that had been fused together. Every time you thought you'd seen all of it, you'd find a new little room or staircase or bar (there was even like a meditation room with beanbags on the floor) and the deco and graffiti definitely completed the look. 

We didn't have as heavy of a night this time around so we woke up a bit fresher and ready to head over to the Buda side of the river, having fully explored the Pest side by this point. We started with the fisherman's bastion (it was a bit of a hike up the hill) and the cathedral, and then had a little drink pit stop. Something I will say for Budapest is that everywhere we went had amazing soft drinks on their menus; lots of homemade lemonades and iced teas.

The Buda side of the river was basically like a little village, very much based on the what I assume was the original one. So we had a little walk around, ending up at the castle. To be honest, I expected the castle to be a bit more magnificent and beautiful than it was. Yes, it was impressive but mostly in size, rather than in intricacy, and it was one of my lesser favourites of the incredible buildings we'd seen. Definitely still worth a look though!

Something we deemed not worth a look (at the very last minute actually) was the Grand Market Hall. We'd read that it was a giant food hall in an impressive old building and wrongly assumed that meant that it was a street food hall. Luckily, we googled it again just before heading there and realised it's actually just a giant grocery market (that would've been a disappointment if we'd have made it there) so we swapped our plans and went to an actual street food market we'd walked past the day before, Karavan. We uhm'ed and ahh'ed for a while over what to get before deciding we should get something you can't get just anywhere, and all opted for goulash in a bread bowl (the bread bowl was an insane size so we fed a fair amount to the tiny birds flying around).

Who said travel home days had to be boring? We decided to end on a high with a wine tasting session, since Hungary is really well known for its wine but doesn't do very much exporting. We found a wine, cheese and charcuterie tasting experience for around £40 per person and it was such good value. It was in this really beautiful cellar so everyone there was participating in the same session (some wine tastings you're just part of a restaurant or a bar or whatever), and you got this massive platter of cheese and meat each. At first I assumed these would be to share between two or even three! We also tried 5 different wines and learned some interesting stuff about each of them (our guide was really good) and it was literally the perfect way to end our amazing trip. Unfortunately, we almost ended up having too much fun, as we took longer than planned to finish up our drinks to head to the airport and hadn't accounted for rush hour traffic so we cut our flight very fine. But a little excitement never hurt anyone, that's what keeps it interesting!