Budapest Hotel/area recommendations

baldbear

Hi

I was wondering has anyone any ideas of a nice hotel to stay in Budapest. Somewhere in a nice area with a good view? I heard that Buda is a nice spot. Has anyone been there recently.
Thanks;)

rossie1977

i was there last week, i stayed in a budget apartment but wouldn't recommend staying there

i visited the Sofitel Budapest Chain Bridge hotel, looked lovely and in a fantastic location, budapest is really a beautiful city

parts of the buda are very hilly so keep that in mind

In_tuition

i visited the Sofitel Budapest Chain Bridge hotel, looked lovely and in a fantastic location, budapest is really a beautiful city

The Sofitel is fantastic, stayed in the luxury club room and actually only booked the hotel again 2 hours ago at lunchtime for a trip in early January. As above it's a truly beautiful city and the Sofitel is fantstic.

netwhizkid

I left Budapest this morning (7hr train trip:() and will say this if you have the cash just splurge on the 4 Seasons Gresham Palace opposite the Chain bridge. The InterContinental Hotel is a hideous looking site in Neo-Classic Budapest but is probably a good hotel.

I had a lastminute.com disaster and my hotel was an absolute kip so I hightailed it out of there to Hotel Budapest and got a smashing rate of €100 for three nights of lastminute.com with a full refund for the other dive. Nice hotel with a flavour of communism in some of the things but would match any Western 3 star, (once you go behind the Iron Curtin subtract 1 star for a real picture of things!)

N.B Never book a hotel with only one or no tripadvisor.com ratings, mine had 1 but it was biased, there were loads in different languages and afterwards when I translated them it would have shown me, if in doubt translate!

Budapest is lovely city but it is massive and Buda is nearly more impressive than Pest, I can imagine in roasting July Weather it must be like Beverly Hills! The Hungarian people are nice, friendly and very helpful, they do however give an impression that their entire national identity is depressed and they seem overall to be depressed. Their economy is in the toilet* and I was awoken on Monday morning by sirens and I looked out and thought an oil refinery must be on fire with all the fire trucks, Later on in the day they were all congregated out side parliament in protest at their government.

Homelessness in a big problem there and it is sad, it broke my heart to see old men and women living rough in the metro stations or any covered spot, to see 60 to 70 year olds begging and selling little bunches of flowers trying to scratch a living made me realise how much we take things for granted and should be thankful of what we do have here.

There must be no pensions for them and I gave one homeless woman all my remaining Forints as I boarded the train for the Czech Republic this morning, it was only worth maybe €15 - €20 but it will make more of a difference to their life than mine.

Other things about it that are different include, all the food stores are manned by security incase people steal food and you must exit through the till even if you buy nothing. Also every single Metro station is manned by two or three fare checkers and sometimes they inspect you upon exiting also incase you dodged them earlier.

I highly recommend Budapest and I think had Austria-Hungary not got involved in WWI and II it would probably be one of the Centres of the world now like London or NY.

*Part of my trip there was to learn from the Hungarian IMF intervention as part of my strategy for surviving the soon impending National Bankruptcy of Ireland and subsequent IMF Intervention like in Hungary's case.

rossie1977

netwhizkid wrote: »

Other things about it that are different include, all the food stores are manned by security incase people steal food and you must exit through the till even if you buy nothing. Also every single Metro station is manned by two or three fare checkers and sometimes they inspect you upon exiting also incase you dodged them earlier.

I highly recommend Budapest and I think had Austria-Hungary not got involved in WWI and II it would probably be one of the Centres of the world now like London or NY.

i noticed that about the food stores even tesco have security outside, just another to add be careful with your change, small shopowners will try to rip you off in budapest

beautiful city though despite its faults, some of the buildings especially in pest are just stunning

Euro_Kraut

rossie1977 wrote: »

i noticed that about the food stores even tesco have security outside, just another to add be careful with your change, small shopowners will try to rip you off in budapest

+ 1 be very careful when handing over notes in a small estabished. A small wine bar ripped me off to the tune of abou €40 when they claimed I gave them 10,000HUF note instead of the 100,000HUF note I actually gave them.

Having said that it is a beautiful City. I stayed in a hotel on the Buda side overlooking the Danube called the Art Hotel. Very nice and got a good deal on it through booking.com.

Most of the nightlife is in the Pest side of town however.