Budapest

Spring Break: City 6 of 6

Hostel

Allison and I left Prague and met up with some of our group in Budapest. We stayed at Wombats hostel, which was pretty large scale and I believe it’s a chain. It had a kitchen and a bar with plenty of space to hang out. I think this is great for meeting people. The bedrooms can be kind of awkward because people are either sleeping or changing, this is why I love it when a hostel includes a space to be social. If I remember correctly, we got a free drink from the bar when we checked in, but no happy hour (Amsterdam wins this category). The beds each had lights and outlets and the wifi was okay but not great. Overall, I would recommend this hostel to anyone traveling to Budapest.

Photo of Wombats City Hostel, taken from the internet

Activities

Thankfully, my friend Shannon studied abroad in Budapest for a semester so she gave me a very thorough list of things to do. On the our first full day, Allison and I were pretty tired so we took it easy. We went to this flea market in the morning, similar to the main square in Prague and walked around. The other people in our group had already been in Budapest for a few nights so they showed us around before most of them had to leave for the airport. Henry stayed with us and showed us another market called the Central Market Hall. It is the oldest and largest indoor market in Budapest. We also saw the Dohany Street Synagogue.

Flea market

Central Market Hall

Dohany Street Synagogue

On the second day, Henry had to leave but Allison and I had enough energy to pack in a full day of activities. First, we walked across the Chain Bridge and hiked up to the liberty statue on top of Gellert Hill. Then we walked over to Buda Castle, Matthias Church, and Fisherman’s Bastion.

Walking across the Chain Bridge

Liberty Statue

View from Gellert Hill

Buda Castle

Buda Castle

Matthias Church

View from Fisherman's Bastillon

After that, we walked across the bridge to the island in the middle of the river called Margaret Island and ate lunch and rented a two-person bike. It was a lot of fun. We continued to the other side of the river and got a look at the Parliament building. I love the architecture in Budapest. Everything is so intricate and beautiful.

Biking on Margaret Island

Parliament building

Finally, we went to Szechenyi Bathhouse to go for a swim. At first we didn’t know that the pools had different water temperatures but later we decided that the one on the right was warmer (although, the left pool had a current in the middle if you swam around this circle). We also visited the park near the baths and Hősök tere.

Szechenyi Thermal Baths

Hősök tere

Food

Like Prague, the food in Budapest was cheap. There was a really cool street/alley way near out hostel off of Király St. that was lined with lights and full of restaurants. We ate here most of the time. There was also this pasta togo place near our hostel that was pretty good. It lets you pick your pasta type, sauce, and toppings. Shannon recommended a breakfast place called Solinfo, which had good coffee and American pancakes. Budapest also has a lot of good gyros and middle eastern food. Like a lot of cities in Europe, kebabs were easy to find. They made pretty good drunk food.

Blurry picture of that ally near the hostel

Picture of Solinfo Cafe, stolen from the internet

Night Life

Budapest is known for having really good night life. One of the other hostels we were considering was a party hostel. We decided that since it was the end of our Spring break that we might need to stay in a place where we could get a good night’s sleep (I do not regret this). Besides wanting more rest, I was able to get out and experience Budapest at night and it was a blast!

On the first night, we went to Szimpla Kert, a well known ruin bar recommended by my friend, Shannon. Ruin bars are super popular in Budapest and are a ton of fun! These are bars that have been created in the ruins of abandoned buildings and transformed into some of the coolest places to hang out. Szimpla is a large bar with many different rooms. The decor is wild and different in each space. The furniture was random and looked like it could have been purchased at a flea market (perhaps it was). The atmosphere of this bar was incredible and I wish I had been there on the first night of Spring break because by the time I was there, my group was a little warn out. The crew had also been to Szimpla already and this was their last night in Budapest so I don’t blame them for the energy not being entirely there.

Photo of Szimpla, stolen from the internet

The next night we went out, it was just Allison and I. Allison hadn’t gone out the first night but she was ready to go this second day. We decided to meet up with an Australian friend, Blake, who we met at the hostel in Amsterdam. The plan was to go to this boat party. Let me be the first to tell you, it was awesome.

I believe the boat party was organized by a couple different hostels in the city. Blake heard about it from the hostel he was staying at. The night began with a pub crawl (which Allison and I missed because we wanted dinner) and then the crowd meandered its way to the river. I say crowd because it was indeed an extremely large group of drunk people. It was a miracle that we even found Blake. As Allison and I joined the crowd, Blake helped us search for one of the hosts so that we could purchase a ticket for the river cruise. I stopped at an ATM and withdrew too much money because I was in a rush and I couldn’t figure out the currency conversion quickly enough (oops). But I was able to do that and still be at the tail end of the moving group because it was that large of a group.

Once the crowd gathered by the river, the hosts stood on a cement wall and explained to us the rules of being on the boat. The announcement was actually riddled with jokes and I wondered if the hosts were just as drunk as some of the party-goers. They really stressed that nobody was allowed to puke on the boat or off the side. After that was taken care of, we filed onto the boat and were each handed a bottle of champagne. Yes, each of us. One bottle a person.

Terrible, dark photo of me and Allison with our champagne bottles

As the boat moved along, we got to see a spectacular view of Budapest lit up at night. There were lots of pictures being taken and as far as I could tell, nobody puked.

The parliament building all lit up

The boat party ended and the crowd was brought back to the bar scene. Allison and I stayed for a little bit longer but then we headed back to the hostel to get some rest. After all, we did have a flight back to Spain early the next morning.

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