Budapest

Budapest is the capital city of Hungary. Hungary is located in Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia. Budapest is the seventh largest city in the European Union. Buda and Pest became united as Budapest in 1873. Buda and Pest are located on opposite banks of the River Danube, with Buda on the west and Pest on the East. The hotel I was staying in was located on the riverside of Pest. ~ Airport ~ There is only one airport in Budapest - Budapest Ferihegy International Airport. The airport is quite small and is located 10 miles (16km) south east of Budapest. It took us ...  Read the complete review

I can't pretend that what follows is a true travel guide to Budapest, since we only went there for a long weekend, but it's a taster. Rather than try to see everything fleetingly, we opted for one of two items that took our fancy, vowing, no doubt, to come back again. Since going there, which is MONTHS ago now, there have been riots in the streets of the capital in protest of a government that lied to its people - Londoners will feel entirely at home. ****************************************************************** ** JULY 2006 - It had been a long time coming, but starting in the previous year with a weekend trip to Prague, which I never did get ...  Read the complete review

Budapest is often described as one of the "great European capitals" and mentioned in the same breath as Vienna or Paris. However, mention the city to most people and they will associate it with the Communist era rather than the "belle epoque". In September 2003 I was lucky enough to travel round central and eastern Europe by train taking in 5 countries, all of which were formerly under the Soviet sphere of influence, behind the Iron Curtain. I have to say that of all the places I saw, Budapest was most like the cities of western Europe and seemed to have that cosmopolitan air that the grand European cities possess. I have since ...  Read the complete review

A late 19th century traveller to Budapest neatly summed up the enigmatic quality of the city thus: “if one is travelling from the east in the direction of Western Europe, it is in Budapest that one experiences the breath of Western civilisation. However, if one is travelling in the opposite direction, it is here that one first gets a taste of the East…”. Situated in a beautiful natural setting on the banks of the Danube (which, incidentally, isn’t blue), the city grew out of two towns on opposite banks of the river; Buda on the hilly western bank and Pest on the eastern plain. They have been united as one city since 1873. Budapest should rightly be ...  Read the complete review

It seemed no time at all between the two hour ten minute flight from Heathrow with the Hungarian Malev Airline, then the ten mile transfer through the rather gloomy suburbs in a waiting taxi from Ferihegy Airport, and our arrival at the luxurious Gellert Spa Hotel on the peaceful Buda side of Budapest overlooking the glorious River Danube. Nothing we had read about Budapest prepared us for the delights we were about to see and experience in this fascinating city. Expectations were entirely different from the reality. Why did we imagine we were visiting an oppressed Eastern-Bloc country, although the drive from the airport did rather confirm our initial ...  Read the complete review