BootsnAll Travel Community

Hi all,

I am going to Budapest on Saturday for a few days. Has anybody got any recommendations and tips for things to see that are off the beaten path? I am also going to Eger, Szentendre, Esztergom and Holloko.

P.S. Why does time always drag the closer to your holidays, I am sat here at work, filing at my temp job, and I just want to be outside in the sunshine!

I can recommend Eger and Szentendre and Pecs is nice too

Hey,

i was in Budapest myself not too long back, and I ventured out to Esztergom myself for a bit. Word of warning, nobody speaks a word of English there, so either brush up on your Hungarian or just wander around and make it up. You may as well pop over to Sturovo as well when you're there and take a wander around a small Slovakian town - it's a beautiful place, but I went there in Winter so it was pretty bleak and grey.

I didn't really see much else outside of Budapest when I was there, but when you're in the actual city, don't just hang around by the Duna and take a wander deep into pest as well, as the parks are wonderful. A long walk, but worth it.

I've been to Budapest last August but i check out pretty much everything i could in 5 days and no at all off the beaten path. i did enjoy Margitsziget a lot and it's a really tranquil place to walk and watch that huge musical fountain

But if you go to Budapest you MUST visit at least Castle Hill

Oh yeah you are dead wt English, unless you visit museums or stay in the hotel. Just go to one of the Tourist Offices in the train stations and pick up a map in English.

I do speak some Hungarian but I felt pretty much like an idiot there lol We didn't get lost though cause we used the map so don't worry abt that: the maps are great!

Sometimes you can get away with German. For some reason a lot of Hungarians speak German, but English?

Its difficult.

If is only a few days, yo'll be spending one day poking around, going to Castle hill and the park near there, and of course visiting the Chain Bridge, which never fails to amaze me.

Then there are the Baths.
The Museums.
The town.

Esterholm. I was enchanted by the place, though of course there was no one who spoke english, and the bus system..
well. it took a while to figure out which train or bus to take and how the schedules worked.

In other words, your platter will be full just doing normal things if all you have is a few days.

They speak German b/c Hungary was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and German was a "state" language.

And I speak Hungarian b/c my county was also part of the Austro-Hungarian empire and pretty much everyone in my grandma's generation spoke perfect Hungarian

I am from Bucharest. Our county was part of the Otoman Empire. And we do not speak turkish.

quote:

Originally posted by andrei morosan:
I am from Bucharest. Our county was part of the Otoman Empire. And we do not speak turkish.

But the case of Hungary is totally different than what the Romanian regions faced during the Ottoman Empire. The turks who still live in Constanta DO speak Turkish though.

But that's diverting from the subject anyway.

The terror house is worth a visit. Very interesting and presented amazingly.

Yeah, Castle Hill is good. I also went to this one touristy site where you could see all these old Soviet statues that they used to have all over the place. They trucked them all to this one spot. I wish for the life of me I could remember what it was called, but I saw pamphlets all over the place for it when I was there.

quote:

Originally posted by Jester:
Yeah, Castle Hill is good. I also went to this one touristy site where you could see all these old Soviet statues that they used to have all over the place. They trucked them all to this one spot. I wish for the life of me I could remember what it was called, but I saw pamphlets all over the place for it when I was there.

Nope, that would be Citadel, right opposite the Castle Hill.
On Castle Hill there are Medieval buildings like Fishermen's Bastion, churches, Royal Palace. The Citadel has those HUGE Soviet statues on top.

I don't think that's it....I seem to recall it being somewhat out of town.

This is it.

If I'm wrong, my apologies, it's been a couple years.

we might be talking abt different things but the only HUGE statues in the City are on the Citadel

Check out my photos on Flickr and maybe you can tell me if you referred to those:

Photo on Citadel

Photo on Castle Hill

Just spent all Sat in Budapest Have only been in Heroes Square, the castle and the Zoo but it was sooooooo nice. Too hot though and really really crowded. Honestly I didn't expect everything to be so crowded in May!

There is a page on this website about Hungary:
http://www.bootsnall.com/Europe-Hungary

I hope someone who administrates that page will change that picture. I prefer to consider it a mistake, instead of a bad joke addressed to Romania. Budapest is the capital city of Hungary, and Bucharest is the capital of Romania.

And please change the picture on the page about Romania:
http://www.bootsnall.com/Europe-Romania
It is not representative and offending, like the first one.

Maybe you can report it or something

quote:

Maybe you can report it or something

Done. Thanks!

static

let me know if you guys need any photos from Romania and/or Hungary. I'm Romanian and took countless of photos here and have a bunch from Hungary as well.

PM if I can help, ok?

quote:

Originally posted by andrei morosan:
There is a page on this website about Hungary:
http://www.bootsnall.com/Europe-Hungary

I hope someone who administrates that page will change that picture. I prefer to consider it a mistake, instead of a bad joke addressed to Romania. Budapest is the capital city of Hungary, and Bucharest is the capital of Romania.

And please change the picture on the page about Romania:
http://www.bootsnall.com/Europe-Romania
It is not representative and offending, like the first one.

Thanks for the note, Andrei - the photos on BootsnAll travel guide pages like that aren't chosen by us. They come through Flickr, so unfortunately we can't control the way they've been labeled (or mislabeled). Sometimes it has really unintended effects - like a picture of a turkey (the bird) on the Turkey page, or a picture of some guy named Chad on the Chad page... I'll pass this on to Sean & Chris, though, and see if there isn't some way to address this in a future version of the travel guides.