Budapest

Located right in the vibrant cafe-bar-restaurant district it’s a good opportunity on first arriving in the area to really get your bearings. Complete tours, which are not compulsory, with the trip to the top of the 96m (316ft) copula with the view thrown in will set you back the priestly sum of just £4 (1500ft)….

It’s wise in Budapest to familiarize yourself with just 4 of the major bridges, that way you’ll usually be able to get a good handle on where you are in the city – if you can just find the river.
By the way, bridge in Hungarian is ‘hid’ pronounced ‘heed’ almost like a Glaswegian would say it….

Pest’s Andrassy Útca travels in a straight line from near to the Danube at Deak Ter and runs all the way to Hero’s Square (Hosok Ter) where you’ll find the Museum of Fine Arts, the Palace of Arts, a replica Transylvanian Castle behind and further still the Szechenyi baths. The metro runs all the way along Andrassy but the street is quite walkable with plenty of shops bars and restaurants….

…Enormous, monumental and really quite impressive, it’s towers peak at close to 44 meters. 53 meters long, 26.5 meters wide, almost unsurprisingly it can seat 3000. Inside is a no less remarkable 5000 pipe organ which has in it’s history been played most famously by Franz List (List Ferenc) and Saint Siens….

One of the best restaurants in Budapest for international cuisine and well located in the fifth district this is not the place to come for an authentic Hungarian dish. Primarily intended as a trap for tourists it does however trap them in a very pleasant way….

One of the most famous of coffee houses in, as the name suggests, a very central location just right to provide after-shopping refreshment being just east of the famous walking street Váci útca. Originally a meeting place for intellectuals, it has, in it’s checkered history, also been a place for paprika buyers, university students as the infamous Eotvos Klub, and even video gamers when it was briefly called ‘Wizzards’….

Recently awarded a coveted Michelin Bib Gaudard – the not so famous lesser cousin of the prized Michelin star – Arcade Bistro now ranks in the top 5 restaurants in Budapest at least according to the Michelin Guide….