Sitting outside Szimpla Kert bar in Budapest, Hungary
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One of my preferred travel styles is to just spend some days in a city, hopping from one coffee shop to the next, exploring, and trying to get a sense of what it would feel like to actually live there. That’s what my sister and I did in Budapest for 4 days. Below are some of my highlights, without a whole lot of fanfare or narrative. Each photo represents a place we visited during our travels.
10 fun things we did
Hike up to the Citadella
Soak in the Gellert Thermal Baths
Visit the Dohany Street Synagogue
Ride the yellow trams through the city
Explore Szimpla Kert ruin bar
Walk down Vaci Street and window shop
Drink a coffee at Vinyl & Wood
Wander through Gozsdu Court
Jog along the Danube Promenade
Order a cocktail at Blue Fox The Bar
Photos of our various activities
Szimpla Kert is a massive ruin pub full of bizarre treasures. It’s worth a visit, and definitely a tourist hotspot. It is the first ruin bar in Budapest, filled with an eclectic array of art and artifacts.We passed by Dohany Street Synagogue, which holds a powerful history as part of the Budapest Ghetto during Nazi occupation in WWII. It is the largest synagogue in Europe and is now a Holocaust memorial, cemetery and museum. We took the city’s yellow tram, or “villamos,” over the river.When we left our Airbnb it was sunny; then all of a sudden it was cloudy and beginning to drizzle. The wind and rain picked up as we were walking around on the Buda side of the city, so we stopped into this retro cafe. In our hurry to get out of the weather, I never caught the name and it doesn’t seem to be listed on Google either!Elisabeth Bridge; the view from halfway up to the Citadella on the Buda side.The view of Szechenyi Cahin Bridge from the Citadella in Budapest, Hungary on a hazy day. To get the best city view, you must make the trek up to the Citadella – it’s worth it.A view from the Citadella of the Buda side of the river – the contrast between the busy Pest side and the serene Buda side of the river is striking.We spent an afternoon at Gellert Thermal Baths in Budapest, just over the bridge on the Buda side. The Baths have a whole underground maze of locker rooms and tunnels that eventually open up into an outdoor area with thermal baths and a wave pool (behind us). These baths are smaller than Szechenyi Baths, but easy to get to and lovely – the day we went it wasn’t crowded at all. We stopped into Blue Fox The Bar downtown for a couple of pretty drinks after dinner one evening.
