Budapest 🇭🇺

Updated: Oct 30

2 Days in Budapest

Hotel (2 nights): Heritage Home Apartments - $80/night for a studio with balcony, located in the Jewish Quarter near restaurants and tourist sites

Day 1: We headed next door to our guest house for breakfast at Vintage Garden, then walked the Jewish Quarter visiting the Ghetto Wall and Doheny Synagogue and on to the tourist sites in Pest (Opera, St. Stephen's Basilica, Parliament, Shoes on the Danube).

We crossed the Chain Bridge to Buda and visited the Buda Castle, Matthias Church and Fisherman's Bastion (photo above) before taking a Bolt back to our guest house where we freshened up and had dinner at the Gozsdu Udvar food court (photo above) followed by a Thai massage in the neighborhood. For an excellent dessert, we headed to the New York Cafe, stopping by Szimpla Kert Ruin Bar to check it out.

Day 2: Another HOT 96 degree day and few establishments have AC, but it is an awesome walkable city - 20k steps yesterday and 10k today. We headed to Stika for breakfast, then walked to the House of Terror, Heroes Square, City Park, Vajdahunyad Castle, stopping for lunch at the famous Gundel restaurant.

We took a Bolt back to our guest house to grab our backpacks and kill time at the Doblo Beer & Wine Bar across the street before heading to Nyugati Train Station to relax in our 2 bed sleeper cabin on the 7:30pm train to Krakow, arriving at 6am (booked through PolRail for 1484 PLN = $369).

PACKING SUGGESTIONS

Travel light: use a Samsonite Underseat Carry-On or backpack and packing cubes
Bring a crossbody bag, travel wallet, portable charger, toiletry bag and European travel adapter (and this small travel adapter)

GETTING THERE

I transferred Chase points to Air France/KLM for two one-way tickets from Minneapolis to Budapest (stopover in Paris) for only 20,000 points + $83 taxes per person.

See Copenhagen & Sweden trip for information on how we returned home from Europe.