One of the great spa cities of the world, Budapest has now shrugged off its communist cloak to embrace the 21st century in style, with luxurious five-star hotels, classy restaurants and state of the art conference facilities.
Grand and glorious buildings line the banks of the River Danube as it flows through the heart of Hungary’s cosmopolitan capital. Nine graceful bridges, heavy with traffic, link the city’s two halves, Buda and Pest. Originally two rival fortified towns – Buda crowning wooded hills on the river’s western bank, Pest strung along the marshy flatlands opposite – they were united in 1873. Between them lies the green oasis of traffic-free Margaret Island.
Beautiful in summer, and magical on summer nights, when winter mists shroud Budapest in white, it becomes one of Europe’s most intriguing cities. See the centuries collide in Roman mosaics, Ottoman domes, Gothic spires and a Byzantine synagogue, broad Eastern European boulevards and Baroque façades, innovative Secessionist style, mustard-coloured memories of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and Liberty Monument atop Gellért Hill, one of the few Soviet-era landmarks still left in place.
From a series of green hills, elegant historic Buda looks down over the Danube to flat, lively, business-busy Pest and the great dome of the neo-Gothic Hungarian Parliament building that dominates the river’s eastern banks. It is a scene memorably framed by the stone arches of the fanciful towered folly, Fisherman’s Bastion, on Castle Hill.
The Castle District, an almost traffic-free walled city with a warren of cobblestoned streets and squares, encompasses the Hapsburgs’ monumental Royal Palace, seven museums, the National Theatre, and the stunning Mátyás Church that has witnessed the coronation of Hungarian kings and is a mesmerising setting for concerts. Next door, the Hilton hotel has a 13th-century church and monastery in its inner courtyard. Reach it through the Buda Castle Hill tunnel, built in 1837 by British engineer Adam Clark, who also built the great Chain Bridge, or take a seat with a view aboard the funicular railway whose wooden cars clank up the slope from the Danube bank.
Centre of government, business, shopping, culture and nightlife, Pest is the livelier side of town. Andrássy Avenue, its leafy main boulevard, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site where cafés, bars and restaurants mingle with some spectacular architecture. The opulent State Opera House was built to rival the European greats and its accoustics still rank among the world’s top five. Gustav Mahler conducted there in 1888. Full of atmosphere, it has frescoed ceilings, gilded walls – and ridiculously cheap tickets.
Further along, housed in the former Nazi and dreaded ÁVO secret police headquarters, at the House of Terror Museum a state of the art presentation explores life under the Nazis and Communists. Nearby Lukacs coffee house was a favoured haunt of the AVO.
Heroes Square, flanked by excellent art museums, and the City Park, lie at the top of Andrássy. Site of Gundel, a truly great restaurant, the palatial, neo-baroque Szechenyi Baths, and the Zoo – worth popping into just to see the magnificent architecture of the elephant house – City Park has a boating lake that becomes an ice-skating rink in winter. It dates from 1896 when the Budapest city fathers went on a building spree to celebrate the Magyar millennium. The underground Metro dates from the same time and was the first on continental Europe, second only in the world to London’s Tube.
While new über-cool cafés, designer bars and trendy nightclubs spring up by the week, the Central European coffee-house tradition holds firm. The elegant Gerbeaud, famed for its cakes, is suitably close to the pedestrianised shopping street of Váci utca, where the architecture of the buildings is much more exciting than the contents of the shops, which tend to be the usual western suspects, including M&S. But step away from designer land and you find tiny shops selling only buttons, repairing umbrellas, or stocking soda siphon replacements, secreted away among the dusty courtyards of old Budapest.
The city’ Jewish community suffered greatly during the Holocaust. The ornate Central Synagogue, Europe’s largest, remembers their fate in a museum and Garden of Remembrance. You’ll hear Yiddish spoken in the streets of the revitalised Jewish quarter with its kosher butchers, bakers and restaurants. Try an inexpensive lunch of goose leg or a thick stew at the tiny, and timeless, Kadar Etkezde at 9 Klauzel tér.
Nagyvasarcsarnok is the main food market, a vast and wondrous place that’s full of colour and life, and a one-stop shop for souvenir gifts. Bring back garlands of red peppers, wine or the strong, clear, fruit-flavoured Hungarian brandy (palinka) and scour the upstairs landings for local crafts.
If you’ve time to fit in a church, St Stephen’s Basilica is the one to see. Built in the late 19th century in Neo-Classical style, and beautifully restored, the 96m-high cupola glistens in gold mosaics.
Pest’s 21st century monument to a glittering future is the Bank Centre. Four 10-storey towers, clad in polished granite and reflective glass that mirror surrounding historical façades, take up a full city block at the heart of the banking and financial district.
Tourism has become one of Hungary’s biggest income earners, of which corporate tourism is a heathily developing segment. Over 330,000 visitors attended international conferences in the country in 2004, and Budapest appeared in the top 10 of Europe’s most popular meeting locations. As well as lavish 5-star hotels with impressive meeting and convention facilities, after its recent €8m upgrade, the Budapest Congress & World Trade Centre can hold 1800 delegates in its conference hall and has 18 other meeting rooms and 900 sq m of exhibition space.
The number of guest nights spent in Budapest has reached well over six million, with 4- and 5-star hotels showing the highest occupancy. Four new deluxe hotels are in the pipeline, including the Italian-owned Boscola group’s reconstruction of the iconic New York Palace, and the transformation of the Ballet Academy opposite the Opera House on Andrássy Avenue into a 5-star Regent Hotel due to open in June 2007.
Getting there
Malév, 0870 909 0577, www.flymalev.co.uk, flies twice-daily from London Heathrow to Budapest, also from London Stansted during the summer. Direct flights from Dublin and Cork to Budapest.
Regional flights: Malév also flies to Budapest from Aberdeen via Amsterdam, and Birmingham, Edinburgh and Manchester via Prague.
Where to stay
Four Seasons Gresham Palace, Roosevelt tér 5-6
Superbly restored to its Hungarian Sessionist splendour, this 1906 city landmark has sweeping staircases and stained glass stairwells, vaulted ceilings and gold tiled mosaics. Business centre, elegant meeting rooms, health club, luxurious spa, two restaurants (Pava is ranked among the best in town) and a bar. Book a room with a picture perfect Danube view of the Chain Bridge and Royal Palace on Castle Hill.
Corinthia Grand Hotel Royal, 43-49 Erszebet korut
When it was built in 1896, the Grand featured a tropical garden and A-list celebrities frequented its bars. It has now been reinvented for the 21st century with a soaring central atrium rising six floors to a glass roof, lavishly furnished guest rooms and suites, an executive floor, fitness centre, Royal Spa opening 2006, three restaurants, lobby bar; 30-room conference and exhibition centre, grand ballroom.
Hotel InterContinental Budapest, 12-14 Apáczai Csere J.u.
Next to the Chain Bridge, overlooking the Danube, guests staying in Executive floor rooms are offered complimentary buffet breakfast, cocktail hour drinks and lunch and dinner snacks. The Corso restaurant, with its show kitchen, serves Asian and Mediterranean cuisine. Conference centre, 1700 sq m of meeting/function rooms including a huge ballroom; business centre, indoor pool, sauna, fitness centre.
Le Meridien Budapest, 9-10 Erzsebet tér
Fine hotel in a listed building close to the main business district. Classically elegant, ultra-comfortable rooms and suites, faultless service, superb food. Member of the Leading Hotels in the World, and the only hotel in Hungary to receive the Five Star Diamond Award from the American Academy of Hospitality Sciences. Business centre and conference facilities (ballroom and six meeting rooms), restaurant and bar, health club with indoor pool, Jacuzzi, sauna and steam bath.
Danubius Hotel Gellért, Szent Gellért tér
Faded Art Nouveau glory on the Buda side, a traditional spa hotel with spectacular thermal pool and steam room complex. Business centre, conference facilities, two restaurants and a bar.
Where to eat and drink
– Sip cocktails at Buena Vista, one of the many hip bars around Liszt Ferenc tér
– For classic, sophisticated Hungarian food, elegantly served in a grand Art Nouveau mansion, Gundel, 2 Allatkerti útca (+36 1 321 3622) is a must
– Bagolyvar, Gundel’s nearby and less expensive sister restaurant (+36 1 468 3110) serves excellent Hungarian home-style cooking and has a shaded summer terrace
– Join the city’s well-heeled for superb fish dishes at Baraka, 12-14 Magyra útca (+36 1 483 1355)
– Sample Hungary’s varied wines from different regions at the stylish Vörös é Fehér (Red and White) Wine Bar and Restaurant, 41 Andrássy útca (+36 1 413 1545)
– For a sense of history, the Astoria Hotel (19-21 Kossuth Lajos útca (+36 1 889 6000) is where the first Hungarian government met in 1919, and its grand coffee house and restaurant echo the era.
Sightseeing tips
– Traffic is nightmarish. Tram no 2 travels the length of the riverside embankment on the Pest side, passing some spectacular buildings along the way
– Summer boat trips on the Danube are a relaxing way of getting the full impact of this impressive city
– Stroll along the Pest embankment at night – Buda’s floodlit buildings are magnificent
– In summer, courtyards in downtown Pest open up as all-night terrace bars
– The view from Castle Hill is superb. For panoramic views from a different, and lesser known perspective, take the lift to the cupola of St Stephen’s Basilica
– Statue Park is where the city’s monumental statues from the Communist era ended up. Full of symbolism, it has a peace park feel about it and is well worth heading out of town to see.
