Budapest is a happy capital. What to do in the city?

Journalists, designers, art historians, musicians and other authors of unusual Tripster tours will talk about what is not written in guidebooks and show the city that is usually not shown to tourists. Today, Budapest is a city where, by the evening of the first day, tourists ask, pointing to the ever-occupied tables in street cafes and carefree couples forever strolling along the embankments: “When do these people work?” Doesn't matter. It is important that Budapest loves and knows how to relax.

(Total 28 photos)

Author — Anna Chaikovskaya, Tripster guide

Photo: Maxim Gurbatov

1. Have breakfast in one of the many cafes in Budapest. Or confectionery. Or beer. Or restaurants. Or small eateries. It will be delicious everywhere. And that nowhere will be fast - get used to it: you are in Budapest. This city is not in a hurry and is not in a hurry for anything. He is happy today and enjoys every minute of it ... An art that not everyone knows.

2. Turning to the next street, get to the fair. And try to talk myself out of buying colorful beads, leather backpacks, ceramic mugs, Art Nouveau glass lamps, snow white fur vests, Chain Bridge and Parliament prints, green plates with red roses, no silver candlesticks, no felt bracelets, no china rabbits, no wooden puzzles, no Hungarian magic boxes with a secret, no forged plaques with the image of the Turul bird, no dolls in blue skirts with white lace, no copper pendants with ruby stones, no bells from glass, porcelain, iron, copper and silver with the inscription "Budapest" around the edge.

3. Explore the Budapest thermal baths, starting with the Széchenyi, where multilingual extras gather and where, in a happy international crowd, among the splashes and enthusiastic laughter of Hungarians, Americans, Germans, Japanese, Italians and all kinds of Slavs, you begin to think better about humanity.

4. To be happy for the city, just like that, from the bounty of nature, receiving seventy million liters of thermal mineral water from underground every day and knowing how to use this water for the joy of people.

5. Continue - in "Gellert", without fuss and noise, while enjoying the bliss of immersion in hot mineral water and looking at mosaics, sculptures and stained glass windows.

6. Remark of a St. Petersburg traveler emerging from the hot waters: “It’s like swimming in the Hermitage!” - pure truth.

7. Climb the Castle Hill on an old funicular, watching the panorama of Pest unfold below with the Chain Bridge and St. Stephen's Basilica.

8. Visit the Hungarian National Gallery, where you can see the magnificent medieval wooden sculpture, and if you have the courage, the patriotic Hungarian painting of the 19th century.

9. Leaving the National Gallery, discover that there is a festival of something tasty around. Not marzipans, so white wine. Not white, so red. Not wine, so goose liver. Not cookies, so chocolate. Not chocolate, but sausages or paprika.

10. Try to remember where you have already met a stone lion, similar to this one, standing in the Vajdahunyad castle in Varosliget (all this is also in Budapest). And catch yourself on the fact that the expression of thoughtful concentration on your forehead is almost the same as on the lion's.

11. Forget about the millions of already existing photos of the Parliament building and find your own, the best angle.

12. Visit the Museum of Applied Arts, even if you are not very interested in carpets, watches, textiles, jewelry, ceramics, porcelain, costumes and other design.

13. The museum building is in itself a work of all arts, worthy of attention and admiration.

14. Go to the tiny town of Szentendre, spending forty minutes by train or twenty minutes by taxi, in order to buy from an elderly couple a cup, plate or vase of local multi-colored ceramics in a small shop behind the Main Square, which cannot be found in the capital.

15. Since you are already in Szentendre anyway, visit the Skanzen Open Air Ethnographic Museum, where there are peasant houses under thatched roofs, and roosters, and a forge, and mills, and a small local train plying among fields and gardens.

16. Looking through the ajar door of one of the Pest houses, see a courtyard behind it, and a garden in the courtyard, and tables in the garden and ask for a large glass of homemade lemonade - a deliciously delicious mixture of ice, orange slices, lemon, mango or kiwi, raspberry or strawberry syrup, a couple of cherries and a mint leaf.

17. Get to Aquincum, a city built by the Romans to touch the stones that remember the time of the legionnaires of Marcus Aurelius.

18. Accidentally throwing a glance towards the Danube, see a bus floating on the waves and give yourself a word next time not to get too carried away with apricot palinka; switch, for example, to Tokay.

19. Try to try at least half of the varieties of local sausages, ham and liver ...

20. ... at least a third, at the same time remembering once and for all that "chiposh" means "spicy."

21. And spicy - because with paprika.

22. Make a trip to Esztergom.

23. Just an hour's journey by suburban bus - and here you have the religious capital of Hungary with a huge cathedral and narrow old streets. Slovakia is on the other side.

24. Return in the evening on a boat, looking at the green hills passing by through a glass of beer.

25. In the Jewish quarter, look at the largest synagogue in Europe, and going inside, marvel at the splendor of its decoration.

26. Before sunset, get to the Heroes' Square to look into the face of Prince Arpad, who led the Hungarians to the banks of the Danube, and admit that this was a wise decision.

27. As it gets dark, start a journey through the romkochmas, identifying them by their romantically dilapidated facades, crowded with young people, multi-colored tables, old Trabants or bathtubs sawn in half as armchairs and sofas and the hubbub that does not stop until midnight.

28. At night, go to any of the bridges and, frozen with happiness, look from the shining Buda to the sparkling Pest, throw a coin into the waters of the Danube and promise yourself to come back here again.

We thank Tripster for their help in preparing the material. Embark on unusual excursions from creative citizens in 200 cities around the world!