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Budapest and Vienna


Janne Lindberg's Laces

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3 hours ago, Janne Lindberg's Laces said:

I'm off to Budapest and Vienna at the start of next month with my other half, 4 days in each city. 

Any suggestions for what to do/where to go please? Definitely going to check out a thermal baths and drink in some ruin bars in Budapest and an Espionage tour has been highly recommended for Vienna. 

I've only been to Vienna once and that was nearly 20 years ago but I seem to remember the old Jewish quarter, Judengasse, had some pretty decent bars and restaurants. 

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For ruin bars, szimpla is the best known and is pretty good.  I prefer Ankert, especially at night when it's lit up. Pretty quiet during the week I think though. Instant is probably the most lively for a night out but I didn't particularly love it. Escape rooms are decent, we did one called TRAP that was good. For baths, I thought Gellert were the best, especially in a couple. 

For other stuff, the obvious tourist things are fisherman's bastion, heroes square, parliament, city park, the cathedral and Margaret island - a wander round there is really nice. As well as the obvious, my girlfriend loved the selfie museum. I thought it was shite. 

In Vienna, the ring tram and palaces are the most obvious. There's a really small American bar (only fits about 15-20 people) which is quite pricey but I had the best cocktails I'd ever had in there. 

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  • 3 months later...

Just back from a 4-day trip in Budapest. Would highly recommend for anyone looking for a city break.

Perhaps stupidly, I was quite surprised at just how busy it was at New Year. On NYE, it was absolutely jumping but Wednesday to Friday, it certainly quietened down a bit.

The Hungarians are absolutely mad for Christmas. They were still playing your Chris Rea's, George Michael's, etc. in the airport on Friday night. The markets were still open over New Year but were being dismantled on Thursday. Would be a good pre-Christmas trip.

The neo-Gothic architecture in the whole city is quite spectacular but none more so than the Parliament building. It's awesome to think how they managed to build it in the late 1800's. Then there's the Fisherman's Bastion, Buda Castle, St Stephen's church, the museums...

Went to the Szechenyi Spa which must generate an absolute mint - it was queued down the street all day. We went for a different package which, whilst probably quite frivolous to sit in a communal bath, was worth it alone to skip the queue. Unlike the Blue Lagoon in Iceland though, this place just felt sleazy. The Gellert spa wasn't too far from our hotel and from the sounds of it, might have been a better place to go. Not convinced by the alleged medicinal properties of the water - even if so, I suspect they were somewhat diluted by the mass of folk sitting stewing in the water. Personally, wouldn't recommend going here.

Recommend a bistro on the Buda side of the river called Zona - food was top notch in there. There was also the very Hungarian sounding, Robinsons, on the pond beside the spa which did a decent goulash. The Budapest Bistro near the Parliament also does a great Hungarian stew. On the downside, avoid at all costs a steakhouse called La Pampa - abysmal service, shite and overpriced meat. We walked out after the waitress eventually brought over two wrongly cooked steaks and rather than apologise and recook, suggested that we just swapped our plates...

Edited by Armand 2
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  • 4 years later...

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