Trip to Budapest for less than 10€? The answer is yes, you just need to know the regular bus line of Student Agency. Sightseeing and nightlife, that’s the ideal combination for a weekend spent in the capital city of Hungary.
Contents
Day 1 – Historical Budapest – bridges, castle, and basilica
Day 2 – Parliament, Heroes’ Square, and City Park Városliget
Day 1 – Historical Budapest – bridges, castle, and basilica
We arrive at the bus station Népliget around noon on Saturday. The journey took just under three hours. We hop on metro line M3 and head to the Ferenciek Tere stop.
TIP: Budapest Metro has a total of three lines, which are completely sufficient for getting around the historic city center.
A short distance from there, we find our Ginkgo Hostel. The room was shared with others and even transitional, but for sleeping, at such a price and right in the center, an unbeatable offer 🙂 We put our stuff in the locker and head out into the city. It must be said that the historical city center is really huge. We start at theWe cross the Elisabeth Bridge and continue along the Danube. As you surely know, Budapest was formed by merging two cities, Buda on the left bank of the Danube and Pest on the right. We are now in Pest, enjoying a beautiful view of the Buda Castle. Along the riverbank runs a tram line with historic tram cars. It’s a lovely sunny day, and there are many excursion boats sailing on the Danube. Along the way, we pass numerous hotels interspersed with historic buildings.
Next is Széchenyi Chain Bridge, where there was a pedestrian zone at that time. The bridge is dominated by two lions at the entrance and two massive arches. At the end, there is a roundabout, and you can choose whether to take the ground cable car up to the castle or walk up the hill. We chose the latter option. It is a nice walk, and now we have beautiful views of Pest, dominated by the Parliament building. We are at the castle courtyard, where there is a statue with a horse, gardens with flowers, and a fountain. We paid the entrance fee, and the tour can begin. It is more or less accessible as a museum, where we went through it on each floor, and finally, we had the opportunity to go up to the dome and admire the views of the whole city. We continue along the city walls towards Matthias Church and Fisherman’s Bastion. Truly stunning towers, we highly recommend.
We are heading back across the chain bridge towards St. Stephen’s Basilica. Despite hearing noise from the nearby park, we didn’t pay much attention to it. It wasn’t until we reached the fenced basilica surrounded by policemen that it became clear. A demonstration could erupt at any moment, and we found ourselves in the midst of it. A policeman even took out his phone and snapped a picture of me. We waited for our Hungarian friend and quickly made our way out. We stopped for dinner at a restaurant and then went straight to our friend’s apartment. After a quick refreshment in the room, and without much persuasion needed, we head out for…Margaret Island for a disco party. We were pleasantly surprised by the vibrant atmosphere in Budapest, full of people, great music, and most importantly, it was an open space. We return home in the daylight.
Day 2 – Parliament, Heroes’ Square, and City Park
After only two hours of sleep, it’s really hard to get up. We have breakfast included in the price, specifically bread with jam, and then we check out. We start the day with a tour ofHungarian National Museum, which was located about two minutes from our hostel. We got on the M2 metro at Kálvin tér station heading towards Hungarian Parliament (Országgyűlés). First, you have to get in line for tickets and then come back at the specified time. If you don’t want to wait, you can buy a ticket from local vendors 🙂 We only saw it from the outside and walked through a little park where there was a statue of Lajos Kossuth. Close to the parliament, there is the M2 metro station Kossuth Lajos tér, and then we switched to the M1 metro at the Deák Ferenc tér interchange, where all three metro lines meet.
We are heading to Heroes’ Square (Hősök tere). It is a large spacious square dominated by the Millennium Monument and numerous statues. We continue on to City Park (Városliget), where we spent the rest of the day. There is truly a lot to admire here. You can find the fairytale-like Vajdahunyad Castle,Széchenyi Thermal Baths, the amusement park Vidámpark, a circus or a beautiful zoo garden. We strolled through the park, sat on a bench for a while, and then slowly headed to the bus. Our departure is at 16:15 from Népliget and everything went smoothly without any major issues. We spent our last forints at the stand near the station and now we can go home 🙂 A demanding but great weekend behind us.
