Two Days In Budapest

This is a budget-friendly itinerary of Two Days in Budapest You can skip visiting some of the places I’ve organised inside. You will still have an awesome time just exploring around and visiting all of the free ones.

I came to Budapest for the first time almost 5 years ago, and it blew my mind! During that trip, two friends and I visited Budapest, Vienna, and Bratislava. Without a doubt, Budapest won my hearth.
I couldn’t believe my eyes. This city has one of the best architectures in Europe, and prices are very budget-friendly compared to many other mainstream European destinations.
The Danube River flows through Budapest dividing it on Buda on one of the shores and Pest on the other.

Hungary is part of the EU but they still use the Forints as their official currency (around 400 Forints equals 1 Euro).

Budapest shines with its stunning architecture, fascinating history, and lively party scene, especially its famous “ruin bars”. These crazy pubs draw crowds from all over the world, making Budapest a vibrant and exciting destination.

For some random twist of destiny I’ve end up living in Budapest since last December and so far I can’t complain!

This two days in Budapest is filled with many places and activities. Although, you wont have enough time to see everything since there’s so much to do in this beautiful city. I recommend staying at least 4 days to fully enjoy, but not everybody can take such long time.
I’ll leave the link for my 4 days Itinerary in Budapest if you are thinking about taking more days here.

Remember that like in most places in Europe if you have a Student ID you will get discounts almost everywhere.

Day 1

Hungarian State Opera

Situated over the Andrássy avenue this massive and intricate building it’s something you don’t want to miss out. Built in 1884, it has become the cultural icon of the city over time. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.
You can get inside for free but only to the main Hall. Still, completely worth it.

St Stephen’s Basilica

Only 10 minutes walking from the Opera you have one of the most iconic places of all Budapest and personally my favourite.

Opened for public use in 1906. It was named in honour of King Stephen I of Hungary. The country’s first Christian king and founder of the Hungarian state.
One strange fact, the Basilica houses the mummified right hand of St. Stephen, which is kept in a reliquary in the basilica’s chapel. The relic is considered sacred by many Hungarians and is the focus of religious veneration, and yes, it’s as creepy as it’s sounds.

Price of the Basilica

• Only to the Church it’s 2300 Forints (€5,8)
• Panorama Terrace and Treasury 4300 Forints (€11)
• All included 6000 Forints (€15,25)

Széchenyi Chain Bridge

After the Basilica and about 10 minutes walking we have the Széchenyi Chain Bridge. Another amazing piece of architecture, it was the first permanent bridge to span over the Danube in Budapest. Making it of special importance on the unification later on between Buda and Pest.
Crossing it is a must when in Budapest. And from it you will have the first glimpse of the Parliament, once on the other side you are officially in Buda.

Buda Castle And Funicular

Once on the other side of the bridge, you have a 10-minute walk uphill until you reach the Castle. Alternatively, you can use the Funicular, one of the oldest operating funiculars in the world, to reach the castle. I haven’t used it because the walk up the hill is very easy, but you are always entitled to use it.
Another option is the free lift.

The Castle is the former house of the kings of Hungary throughout centuries, it dates back to the 13th century and it was the centre of all the royal court life.
Today the whole complex is a UNESCO World Heritage and it host several museums.

The gardens, the main courtyard and the surroundings of the Buda Castle are free. You will have to pay if you want to get inside any of the museums.
You’ll find The National Gallery, The Budapest History Museum, as well as the National Library.
You can easily spend 3 to 4 hours in this place, specially if you decide to see any of the Museums.

Price of Funicular

• One way ticket is 1200 Forints (€3)
• Return ticket is 1800 Forints (€4,5)

The Funicular is open daily from 7.30 AM till 10 PM. It has maintenance every Monday of an Odd Week

To find the lift you will need to search Várkert Bazár in google maps and you will find it there. You will see it clearly mark with signs, this is the best option if you don’t want to pay for the Funicular and you are not a person who wants to go up the hill on foot.

Price of Matthias Church

• To the Church and the Museum of Ecclesiastical Art in the crypt is 2500 Forints (€6,35)
• To the Bell Tower is 2900 Forints (€7,35)

Fisherman’s Bastion

Right next to it, a minute walking from the Church. We have Fisherman’s Bastion, this place is incredibly beautiful, if you are a photographer, either professional or amateur this place is for you!
I definitively recommend to get here before sunset. Because you’ll have one of the best views of Budapest, after sunset all of the main buildings will sparks in a magnificent gold light.
Primarily built for decorative and symbolic purposes rather than for defensive reasons. It features seven turreted towers, representing the seven Magyar tribes that combined to form the Kingdom of Hungary.

The Bastion is for free. If you want to go to the Upper Towers is an entrance fee of 1200 Forints (€3). I don’t think it’s worth paying for this because the view isn’t much better than the one below.

Castle Hill

The top of the Hill in where you have Buda Castle, Fisherman’s Bastion and Matthias Church is called Castle Hill and once you finished taking thousand of pictures you can continue walking through it to be absolutely amazed by the beauty of the colourful houses and their decorations, specially at dusk, this place truly becomes in a fairy tale.
There’s only 2 streets that you can follow from the Matthias Church and both goes around so you can choose any and get lost in this timeless place.

Have Dinner in Street Food Karavan Budapest

You’ll find a diverse range of cuisines represented in Budapest’s street food caravans, from traditional Hungarian dishes like lángos (deep-fried flatbread) and chimney cake (kürtőskalács) to international favourites like burgers, tacos, and Asian street food.
And the best part is that’s right next to Szimpla Kert which is the last place we will visit on the first day.

Szimpla Kert

And with this essential stop, we will conclude our first day, and what a day! After been completely amazed for all the places we’ve been, now it’s time to set aside your tiredness and party!
This is THE most famous Ruin Bar in the world, full of mystic, bizarre decorations and an awesome atmosphere. You can walk around different rooms, dance on the ground floor, sit down on cushions or even a bathtub.
There’s more than 10 individual bars inside and each one has different options to try.

Make sure you try the Pálinka (a fruit brandy, famous in Hungary) or a shot of Unicum (a herbal liqueur with more than 40 different herbs and spices, also very popular and famous in Hungary), this last one tastes horrible but is part of the experience!

Day 2

Considering the end of the first day, I will not force you to start the day at 7 AM because a proper itinerary has in mind this kind of situations.
Let’s continue with our two days in Budapest

Central Market And Liberty Bridge

To start the day we will go to another very emblematic bridge and to have lunch in the Central Market.
The Market is located in the heart of Budapest, on the Pest side of the Liberty Bridge.
It has a distribution of 3 floors. In the ground floor you will find fresh produce, meats, cheeses, baked goods, and spices, offering a vibrant array of local and seasonal products.
The upper floor houses a variety of vendors selling traditional Hungarian handicrafts, souvenirs, clothing, and household items.
And the last floor is a balcony level with eateries where visitors can enjoy a meal or snack.

Be careful on what you buy here. There are some good and cheap options, like cheese and paprika (in all of its forms and shapes because Paprika here is a Rockstar) there are a good souvenirs to take home with you.
It happen to us that we bought a chimney cake and we pay 3500 Forints (€9).
And on the street vendors they charge you 800 Forints (€2) for one of those, true that the one we got had ice cream inside but the difference in price was staggering.

The bridge was originally named after Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary, the bridge was later renamed Liberty Bridge in 1926 to commemorate Hungary’s regained independence following the end of World War I. A freedom which wont last for long.

Hungarian Parliament

Probably the most Iconic building in all Budapest, the real crème de la crème!
You can take the Tram Number 2 and be there in 12 minutes, also enjoying the views of the Danube while going.
It took 19 years to built but it was definitively worth it. Is the second biggest Parliament of the world but by far the prettiest of all.
One of the most famous features of the Parliament Building is the Hungarian Crown Jewels, which are kept in the central dome’s Crown Guard Room. The Crown Jewels include the Holy Crown of Hungary, scepter, orb, and coronation sword, which are symbols of Hungary’s medieval monarchy and national sovereignty.

Price of The Parliament

• For EEA citizens is 6000 Forints (€15,5)
• For non EEA citizens is 12000 Forints (€30,5)

I haven’t been inside because I find it a little bit over priced (specially as a non EEA citizen) but from the outside is mind blowing! Specially by night when it comes to life with the lightning.

Shoes On The Danube Bank

As you’ve probably already noticed while walking around the city, there are hundreds of statues scattered throughout Budapest, but one of the most unsettling ones is probably the Shoes on the Danube.
You can find them very close from the Parliament. Only 5 minutes walking.

Their story is horrifying. During World War II, as a means of exterminating Jews, they would tie them up with wire in a line along the riverbank, force them to remove their shoes—often the only valuable possession they had—and then shoot the first and last person in the line, causing the dead weight to drag the rest under. Just horrible.

Heroes’ Square

Sitting at the end of Andrassy Avenue, this square is a beautiful place to visit. Here, you can see statues depicting the seven Magyar (Hungarian) chieftains who, according to Hungarian folklore, came together to form the Kingdom of Hungary.
It was built at the end of the 19th century, to celebrate Hungary’s millennial anniversary in 1896.

In the surroundings of the Square you will find the Museum of Fine Arts and the Kunsthalle.

Vajdahunyad Castle

Only 8 minutes walking from Heroes’ Square we have Vajdahunyad Castle, one of my favourites places in Budapest, mainly because is in Varosliget Park which I love! But also because there’s so much to see in such a small area!

The castle was designed to showcase various architectural styles found throughout Hungary’s history, ranging from Romanesque and Gothic to Renaissance and Baroque. Within the complex there’s several other notable structures, such as the Chapel of Jak, modelled after a 13th-century church in Transylvania, and the Agricultural Museum’s main building, designed in the Art Nouveau style.

To walk around the complex is free but if you want to go to any of the museums inside you will have to pay an entrance fee.

Széchenyi Thermal Bath

¿What better way to end a couple of incredible days than with a visit to a thermal bath?
Only 6 minutes walking from Vajdahunyad Castle and also inside Varosliget Park we will find the Bath.

Probably the most famous thermal bath in Budapest, it is also one of the most expensive. There are more than 15 thermal baths in Budapest, and they have been around since Roman times.
I think is a really good idea to finish the day in here because after this you will feel like a shelly fish, absolutely relaxed and fancying a bed to pass out on.

Price of Széchenyi Thermal Bath

• On week Days (Monday – Thursday) is 10500 Forints (€26,5)
• On weekend Days (Friday – Sunday) is 12000 Forints (€30)

If by chance you are in Budapest on a Saturday, inside the Bath they throw a party almost every Saturday, you can check it out on here if it is something that you would like to experience, dancing and drinking in hot water sounds like a crazy story.

And with this we finish our two days in Budapest!

How To Move Around In Budapest

I’ll say Budapest is almost all walkable, and most enjoyable by walking, because of it’s incredible architecture, but if you are someone who doesn’t fancy walking around I’d recommend the public transportation, private taxi (Bolt) or the public Bicycles for this two days in Budapest

1 Taxi (Bolt)

If you need/want to use a Taxi I always recommend to use the Bolt app to order one, most taxis in Budapest are associated with this app and they can’t scam you if you use it because is a fix rate so there’s no chance of them going in circles to charge you more.

• Download the app for Apple devices Bolt
• Download the app for Android devices Bolt

2 Public Transport

Budapest has an incredible public transport that goes almost everywhere in the city, you have buses, trams, trains and subways.
One single ticket is 450 Forints (€1,15) you can buy them directly in any tram or subway station in the selling machines (they are all coloured red), or you can download the BudapestGo app and buy it with your debit or credit card.
You will need a ticket before getting to any public transport.

• Download the app for Apple devices BudapestGo
• Download the app for Android devices BudapestGo

You will need to buy a single ticket every time you want to use any public service, if not, you have the option of buying a Daily Travel Card which allows you unlimited travel tickets also available at every selling machine or in the BudapesGo app and those are divided in 3 types.

• 24 Hour Budapest Travel card (for 2500 Forints or €6,4)
• 24 Hour Group Budapest Travel Card which allows up to 5 people (for 5000 Forints or €12,7)
• 72 Hour Budapest Travel Card (for 5500 Forints or €14)

3 Public Bicycles

The last option and my favourite! It’s the public Bicycles! Not only can you do some exercise, but you can also see the city as you cycle around! These bikes are everywhere!
The app to use the public bicycles is MOL Bubi.

• Download the app for Apple devices MOL Bubi
• Download the app for Android devices MOL Bubi

Advantages of using public bicycles.

• It costs only 1000 Forints (€2,5) for the monthly pass and, I know what you are thinking ¿Why would I take a monthly pass for only 2 days?
  Because the other option is to pay as you use it for 40 Forints a minute that gives you a total of 25 minutes of use to spend the 1000 Forints that is the monthly pass.
• You can rent TWO bicycles per account every time, so if you are a couple or traveling with friends for the 1000 Forints of the monthly pass you can have 2 Bicycles every time. So it would be 500 Forints each (€1,25)
• They are literally everywhere in Budapest, and as well the cycle path around the city to get anywhere.

One Thing: you have 30 minutes of free cycling for you and your extra bicycle (if in use) after the 30 minutes they charge you 40 Forints per minute, to keep it for free, once you are getting close to the 30 minutes you just have to go to one of the pick up points and return the bicycle, once the app understand you are finish you can again unlock the same bike to have another 30 minutes for free and repeat after the same process.

Make sure that the app acknowledges that you have returned the bicycle. If you notice the timer still running after you have returned it, you can contact support and explain your situation. This has happened to me a couple of times, but I was never charged extra as it’s an issue with the app.

Extra Tip for My Two Days in Budapest: How to Get to the City Center From The Airport

The cheapest way and my personal recommendation is to use the Bus 100 E Airport Express, you have one departing every 20 minutes and it operates between 05:00 until 01:20.
It costs only 2200 Forints (€6) and it will take about 40 minutes to get to the city centre.
The Bus route ends at Deák Ferenc tér and from there you can take another public bus or a Bolt Taxi to get to your accommodation and you will save a a good amount of money.

I hope this two days in Budapest help out fellow travellers!