Budapest: move over, Paris

Both of us love Paris. In fact up to this point Mary has always said that it's her favourite city. But now it has lost that title to Budapest which for her has become number one.
When we had last visited two years ago there was a lot of graffiti to be seen and a lot of litter lying around. Things still weren't perfect this time but we did notice a significant improvement over those two years. The work is continuing with more and more buildings being restored to what they once were.
Budapest is now a major tourist destination, though our impression is that it isn't overrun yet with tourists to the extent that other major European cities are. That in itself makes it more appealing, though there seems little doubt that it too will be discovered by the hordes.
Service standards still fall a little short at times. For example, when we went to pay for our meal the previous night, our embarrassed and apologetic waitress advised us that they didn't accept credit cards. Brian had to sprint to an ATM a couple of hundred metres down the road to acquire some Hungarian forints . As already mentioned, the public transport system is excellent but it is hard for a visitor to find their way around. Cities such as London and Paris do their signage much better. Budapest will catch up.
What Budapest really has going for it are the river scenes and the spectacularly beautiful buildings. Also, for the time being at least, it is comparatively cheap.
Our touring day started with a trip to the Central Markets. They are housed in a historic building on the Pest (ie opposite) side of the river from where we were and a 15 minute tram ride away. We had certainly made very good use of our transport passes during our visit. The markets are huge, spotlessly clean and offer good quality meat, smallgoods, and fruit and vegetables as well as other foods. Raspberries are Brian's weakness and he managed to overinfulge by eating a big punnetful in no time flat. He pronounced them to be excellent.
Many locals seem to shop there and this very large market is also a tourist attraction. We found the upper level, which has clothing for sale as well as a lot of tacky souvenirs, to be less appealing though overall our visit to the market was very interesting.
Directly across the river from there are the historic Gellert Hotel and its famous hot baths. We weren’t dressed (undressed?) for the occasion in that we hadn't thought to bring our togs with us from the hotel. In any case we were more interested in just having a look. As expected the foyer of this hundred year old hotel is beautiful.
Around the corner of the building is the entrance to the famous baths. It too is very stylish. We could only catch a glimpse of the indoor pool and it looked impressive. We weren’t prepared to buy tickets so we decided to move on and visit the nearby Hungarian National History Museum. We spent a couple of hours there looking at items dating from the 11th century to the 16th century and learning more about the history of Hungary, starting with groups of warring tribes. Another whole section of the museum deals with Hungary:s more recent history but we were starting to flag so trotted back to the hotel before heading out later for dinner in the upmarket shopping area of Váci Utca. Another full and satisfying day.Read more