Okay, starting off with a confession. You’re probably thinking…she’s got the first line of that George Ezra song wrong. No I do know that the first line is “My House in Budapest”, however…I only learnt that today. I spent the whole holiday singing “My Heart’s in Budapest” only to return and realise Ive been wrong the whole time. However, Mr Ezra is correct. Budapest is undoubtedly a hidden treasure chest.

Day One 12/08/19

After an early start (03:00am early – although it never seems so bad when you’re off on holiday does it?) we trundled down to Stansted, caught our peaceful flight and landed in Budapest. There’s not really much more I need to say about that – everyone knows how the airport works and it’s frankly boring!

We had that wonderous moment when you step off the plane and the wall of heat hits you like a warm embrace and you think… “yes, this isnt England!”. We had booked our transfer to the hotel through a company called Viator so once we had grabbed our (very grubby looking) suitcase from the baggage claim we greeted the young lady holding a sign with our name on and we were off! She introducted us to our driver who was a grumpy yet helpful man, on the way in he told us how to say thank you in Hungarian, and helped us with the pronounciation. It’s Koszonom if you wanted to know.

Our hotel was lush and an excellent choice if I do say so myself. We stayed in Hotel Clark which was right opposite the Szechenyi Chain Bridge – the most famous bridge in Budapest. It was the first ever bridge built to cross the Danube and connect the two districts of Buda and Pest to create Budapest. It has stone lions flanking each entrance and is an icon on the skyline. We decided to splash out a little more and go for a room that overlooked the Danube and the bridge. A decision we were so glad we made as we were not disappointed!

Our hotel had a cool geometric lion theme going on and it was superbly decorated and perfectly clean. Not to mention there was an epic Queen Sized bed with SEPERATE DUVETS (genius).

Enthused by our epic view and wanting to get out and explore we quickly unpacked, got changed and made our way out on to the streets of Budapest. Naturally our first port of call was getting a closer look at the chain bridge where we took our first photos of the trip!

After a few poses at the entrance we made our way across the bridge!


We were immediately drawn to the beautiful parliment building that sits right on the bank of the Danube. We took a leisurely stroll in that direction, enjoying the heat and excitement of exploring.

The building was even more stunning up close, we spent a bit of time lounging around on the grass outside the building, taking photos and perusing my Lonely Planet Budapest map (that I had already extensively studied and annotated). We soon noticed there was a charming yellow tram that past by fairly often and I recalled reading that this tram was the best one to take for sight seeing. I could see why as it passes right by the building itself.


At this point we were starting to get a tad peckish so we wandered in the direction of the main town in search of some food. We stumbled across an Aldi and intruiged by the kind of snacks available we ventured inside. We came back out with some pastries, drinks and chewy sweets. It was this moment Liam fell head over heels in love with pizza swirls. For the remainder of the holiday we couldnt pass an Aldi without him having to pop in and get one. Its worth noting at this point that Budapest is one of the cheapest cities Ive ever visited. Ill give an idea of some prices as I ramble onwards…

By this time we had been up for about 12 hours and were starting to get tired. We headed back to the hotel for a bit of a rest!

When Liam woke from his nap (and I was done studying the map some more) the sun was starting to go down and we decided to go out on another random walk. We were lucky that our hotel was right by the Fernicular that took people up the hill to the castle and surrounding area.


We could see loads of people queueing to take the ride up the hill but we decided instead to take the steps and Im so glad we did because we got lota of different and wonderful viewpoints across the city as we trundled our way up the hill.

As we continued our walk we watched darkness fall over the city and the night lights come alive. We ended up having a bit of a photo opportunity walk and we eventually made our way up to the castle.


The castle was beautiful up close and was lit up to look truly stunning against the dark sky. At this time of night (around 10pm) there were a few people up there looking round but not many. Id recommend going up there at night to not only marvel at the beauty of the building but because its significantly quieter.


Following on from our photography walk we decided to head back once again in search of more snacks. We decided to go to the basement shop next to our hotel and stocked up on drinks and crisps – we were still quite full from our snacking binge earlier.

Instead of walking back through the dark park back down to the hotel we decided to take a trip on the Fernicular! It cost us just under a fiver for both of us to go down, provided a lovely view and saved us a significant amount of time! Plus the carriages were super cute!


By this point we were absolutely dead on our feet and collapsed into bed. I fell promptly asleep knowing I wanted to get up early to cram as much in as possible. I was excited about what the next few days would bring but I was certain Budapest was going to steal my heart for sure.

#budapest #zerotohero #holiday #citybreak