Random Budapest tips

Updated March 2024

Books to read:

• Iron Curtain 1945–1956, Anne Applebaum’s thematic look at communism in Central Europe.
• Budapest 1900, a snapshot of one of Europe’s jewel-box capitals… before Hungary picked the wrong side in multiple wars. (As it’s doing once again in Ukraine.)
• Under the Frog, short fun fiction about life in the 50s and 60s.
• The Budapest Protocol, an alt history set in 2011 and 1944 that captures Hungary's grit and glitter.
• Prague: a novel, actually about expat life in Budapest in the early 90s, including some folks I knew then.

Quick geography lesson:

Buda: on the hilly, leafy west side of the Danube river. The foothills have some apartment buildings… further up it’s full of glam villas. Traditionally more Catholic/royalist.

Pest: the flat, east side of the Danube. Full of apartment buildings, gritty side streets and broad avenues. Traditionally more Jewish, cosmopolitan and socialist.

Food and drink (mostly Pest):

• Cafe Kor — family run bistro in the center of town, full of locals. Great goose liver (and/or crackling!) and wine list. Finish with a glass of Tokaj.
• Potkulcs — dive bar/restaurant with occasional live music, Czech beer and gloriously greasy garlicy “gypsy steak.”
• Kiskakukk — classic Magyar food in a paneled restaurant on a pleasant walking street parallel to the Danube.
• Bortársaság—a stunning wine society and network of shops founded by friends of mine back in ’93, these folks helped revive Hungarian wine (once famed across Europe, then diluted by Soviet preference for quantity over quality) by seeking out and promoting the best and brightest of the generation of post-Communist vinters. Locations across the city and country, the biggest is the Lanchid location, I think.
• Menza — on Liszt Ferenc Square, ironically celebrates cafeteria food and socialist modernism… great tunes and orange decor!
• Dionysos — Greek restaurant with good food and great views of the Danube.
• Bambi Eszpresszó — (Buda) classic cafe out of the 60s! This place isn’t retro, it’s just untouched since the year I was born.
• Pingrumba — (Buda) “FROM ATLAS TO ARARAT, FROM THE BOSPHORUS TO GIBRALTAR” … hip vibe, awesome food.

The Bambi, straight out of 1962.

Transport:

Trams are an ideal way to see the city, particularly #2 along the Pest side of the river and #6, which circles the ring road. DO buy a ticket, and, as in all tourist-engorged cities, do watch your wallet.

BOLT is a great app for affordable taxis. You can input start/end points and avoid trying to speak Hungarian. Works elsewhere in Central Europe too.

Buda/Pest highlights:

The “Castle District” on the west side of the Danube (Buda) is full of faux medieval architecture, monarchist pretense… skip it if your time is short. If you want to experience a fun conglomeration of scenes, start at the Bambi coffee shop (straight out of 1962), walk up the hill to Szell Kalman Ter (used to be Moszkva Ter, the tram hub where kids gathered during the 70s and 80s to plot their night escapades) to see the Mammut Mall (modern, erected on the site of an old train factory), the Fenyi Utcai Piac (farmer’s market in a modern/brutalist setting) and have a coffee at a cafe along the pedestrian Lovohaz utca and eat at Pingrumba (mentioned above.) From here, you can grab a #6 tram to head over to Pest…

Random stuff on the east (Pest) side is better. A quick tour below… if you start at roughly 12 o’clock on the clock dial, this zigzags around to 6 o’clock. Most of this stuff — with the exception of the city market — is within 5–10 minutes walk of other points.

• Run or walk around Margit Island (6k?), which has flower gardens, tennis courts, thermal baths, huge swimming pools
• Have a coffee at a cafe or restaurant along Pozsonyi ut
• Falk Miksa utca (street) — parallel to the river, shops with old art, furniture, an ocean of kitsch with islands of incredible authenticity. Like a museum with prices (1 hour, if you duck in and out of places)
• See a show at the Music Academy — what Bpest was like 100 years ago, see any concert for the experience, even if you split at intermission. (My family lived in an awesome apartment on the top floor of 10 Liszt Ferenc Ter.)
• Szechenyi Baths: in the middle of a public park. (More on baths.)
• The two art museums on Hero’s Square are manageable and worth a stroll if you’re in that mood. With the city center behind you, the Museum of Fine Arts (El Greco, some Dutch masters) is on your left and the Műcsarnok (one or two exhibitions of “recent” art at a time) is on your right.
• Besides being a memorial to human depravity, the Museum of Terror (not far from Liszt Ference Ter) is a fascinating and disturbing attempt by Hungary’s nationalist government to conflate the Nazis and the Communists, with the effect of justifying/stoking modern day nationalism. (Read When the Danube Ran Red for a child’s memory of ‘44.)
• Visit the Dohanyi Utca synagogue — Europe’s largest — and behind it the location of the Budapest ghetto. Many Jews who lived in Budapest survived WWII, while 90% of those in the countryside died in camps, herded out of the country in March-June 1944. (Oddly, the area is now party central for tourists.)
• Folk Art Museum: lots of cool old pottery and furniture.
• The giant city market — lots of pigs heads and paprika and random pickled things. Go upstairs and order a langos (fried bread), spread some crushed garlic sauce on it, then, to dissolve the grease that’s quickly coagulating in your veins, do a shot of palinka (fruit brandy.)

Budapest, the melting pot:

• Check out a gourmet multi-national smorgasbord of stand-up comics at twice-weekly Hot Paprika Comedy shows.
• Hungarian nationalists, including those in Fidesz, the party that dominates Parliament and the judiciary, like to pretend Hungary is “racially pure,” even arguing that this purity contributes to the country’s economic stability.

Pronunciation:

After returning from Hungary, should you talk about your visit to “Budapesht” (mimicking Hungarian, which turns “s” into “sh”) or “Budapest” (phonetically in English)? Many tourists affect the former pronunciation — which is odd, because almost nobody talks about their trips to “Paree” or “Roma,” right? (I confront the same problem when referring to Indianapolis, which residents universally call “Indy,” when I’m outside in Indiana.)

An hour away:

• Esceri flea market: accessible by bus, no idea if this is still good.
• Szentedre: accessible by train, the village packed with tourists, but pleasant in the winter or early AM. Great food at the Arany Sarkany.
• Skip “Statue Park”… it’s not worth the effort.

And a friend’s notes on Prague.

Online resources: LikeLocals.