Recap of 2018: Hungary, more than just Budapest!

Last Christmas my boyfriend was the lucky recipient of tickets to the 2018 Hungarian Grand Prix (from me) in a bid to bring some more excitement for him to our summer holiday! This then gave me the freedom to book up everything for a 10 day trip and start planning everything I wanted to see. We also celebrated our anniversary while here (actually on the first day of the Grand Prix…) so it made for a great trip. The Grand Prix was a total of 3 days out of our 10 and I won’t be including details of it here.

One thing that struck me when I was planning the trip is how little information there is about places outside of Budapest! I hope this post will inspire future visitors to Budapest to also take a trip outside of the city to somewhere else. Hungary has more to offer. Read on for all of the details of our trip in July.

Logistics

· The currency is the Hungarian Forint but some places may take euros. Card is widely accepted so we didn’t take any cash out in advance

· If you travel at peak times (like we did in July) then expect to pay more for flights. To reduce this cost, keep an eye out for deals and book as early as you can

· We stayed in Budapest and rented a car for all of the day trips. There are a ton of really affordable AirBnbs in Budapest although you will need to pay extra for parking if you stay centrally

Budapest

So unsurprisingly, capital city Budapest is Hungary’s big ticket item. To me, the city felt really big and sprawling with not a particularly natural hub/centre. Instead, there are many big sites spread out across both sides of the river (west is Buda and east is Pest) so the public transport, particularly the subway system, will be your best friend. Read on for the places I would recommend on a trip to this gem of Europe!

Szechenyi thermal baths in City Park

Perhaps what Budapest is most well-known for is its many thermal baths. We visited two, Gellert over on the Buda side of the river and even more famously Szechenyi the outside baths, over in Pest. Gellert is famous because of some of the incredible grand architecture inside and felt quite traditional with locals bathing alongside outnumbered tourists! Szechenyi, on the other hand, definitely felt more touristy and more of a day out. The baths are outside and feel more hedonistic then Gellert, with bars serving drinks and people sunbathing/socialising.

For me, the rest of Budapest’s key sites are a collection of majestic impressive buildings. From the Parliament buildings, St Stephen’s Basilica and the Great Synagogue over in Pest, to imposing Castle Hill with all that it has to offer in Buda. One of my favourite spots of the city was just south of Castle Hill, on Gellert Hill. On a super-hot summer day, the climb up this hill will feel like climbing Everest! But at the top (at the Citadella), you will be rewarded with fantastic views of the city (as seen in the article's cover photo). It’s so wonderful that you won’t want to come back down… especially because you’ll still be tired from the climb.

Finally we can’t talk about Budapest without talking about increasingly popular ruin bars. There are plenty across the city, each with their own individuality. I would definitely recommend spending an evening ruin-bar-hopping and sipping your way around the city! Also make sure you enjoy the food of Budapest, and Hungary more generally. Of course there is Goulash but also a variety of other paprika based dishes! Something else which I personally didn’t enjoy but my boyfriend did (and it was part of SO many dishes so sort of hard to avoid anyway) was these pasta/dumpling/noodle type things.

All in all Budapest is of course a great city to visit and you can certainly find plenty to occupy a long weekend or even longer. However, Hungary is more than just Budapest so please read on for some of my other highlights of this lovely country!

Visegrad

When you set out north along the Danube out of Budapest, you come across small towns such as Visegrad. We wanted to visit Visegrad in particular for the castle (one of many during our time in Hungary!) and views of the Danube bend. Genuinely though I don’t think I was expecting it to be as impressive as it was. The castle itself really wasn’t notable but standing atop the hill looking down on the Danube bend was really remarkable. The castle itself has terrible parking facilities so you may need to continue down the road for parking and then walk.

We did also stop at Szentendre, another Danube river town, on the way back but I didn’t find this particularly special so we didn’t spend long there at all.

Eger

Eger is well known as the home of The Valley of the Beautiful Women – where you can find many traditional wine cellars, each producing their own variety of wines. We visited on our last day of the holiday, and it was the one day we didn’t want to use our hire car! You can catch a coach from Budapest which was exactly what we did and was very easy.

In Eger town we went up to the castle for our daily dose of views (and castles). From the town centre it’s then a 30 minute walk to the Valley of the Beautiful Women. All of the wine cellars are located on the same couple of streets. Each one is unique so spend your afternoon strolling down and entering into those that take your fancy! We started slow but went into 5 or so and stumbled back to Budapest at the end of the day a little worse for wear! The last one was quite mental really, we ended up doing a dentist’s chair with the elderly lady who owned the cellar (and who didn’t speak a word of English). Hungarian wine was really enjoyable and they certainly were generous with their sizes!

Lake Balaton

This huge freshwater lake was one of the main reasons I was keen to visit Hungary. I was once flying over Europe and Lake Balaton was easily spotted from the plane! We started our day trip by heading over to a town called Szigliget on the north west of the lake. Here there is a ruined castle that you can climb for some views of this end of the lake.

Then we drove along the lake edge to pretty town Tihany. I was really in my element here – enjoying a relaxing lakeside stroll before donning my swimming costume and taking to the water! The water was surprisingly warm but still refreshing from the scorching weather. My favourite part of swimming in lakes is that you really can just float without worrying about getting washed away by a monster wave!

What do you think? If you were visiting Budapest would you try to make a day trip outside of the city? I hope so! Let me know in the comments down below and I would be happy to help with any questions!