Pop-up bars, boutique hotels and Soviet sculptures in the Hungarian capital.
Set on the river Danube, Budapest has enough beautiful buildings and historic landmarks to make walking the city a challenge best spread over several days. A resurgent bar and clubbing scene with cocktail know-how being imported from Europe’s west, hotels that blend the best of the old and new, and communist relics at Memento Park are among the highlights.
Drink
With mild summers, a fantastic river and a beautiful cityscape, Budapest hosts many picturesque outdoor drinking spots in the warmer months. All that’s needed for a kert (garden bar) is the courtyard of an abandoned building or a rooftop and some enterprising local to throw together some chairs and decorations to start the party, making many bars transitory and hard to find.
A38
Buda side of the Danube, 150m south of Petőfi Bridge.
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A Ukranian barge that has been remodelled into a club for the cool kids, with top shelf entertainment accompanied by top shelf prices. The outdoor bar is upstairs, with foosball tables and great views.
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Fecske
Árpád fejedelem útja 8, Second District.
For a more stable outdoor drinking experience, head to the terrace overlooking the Császár-Komjádi pool, where deck chairs offer a great view of the Danube, Margit Island and the pool itself. With a DJ playing relaxing tunes and food and drinks at reasonable prices, it’s a great place to soak in the summer sun.
Szimpla
Kazinczy utca 14, Seventh District.
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Szimpla has been around since 2001, making it one of the oldest kerts in the city. With independent films screened in an open-air cinema, a computer room, comfy old furniture and animation festivals on offer, it attracts students and arty types.
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Stay
Budapest’s economic woes haven’t been kind to much of its majestic architecture, but some brave entrepreneurs are gutting beautiful buildings, blending the old with the new in the form of boutique hotels.
New York Palace Budapest
Erzsébet krt. 9-11, 14th District.
One of the city’s most spectacular renovation rescues, it might look like a palace but was originally home to an insurance company. It reopened in 2006 with luxurious suites that are all about the Italian marble, freshly cut flowers, velvet and plush carpet. The gym and spa are housed in a modern grotto and the famous café downstairs has been restored to the glory of its gilded past.
Art’Otel Budapest
Bem rakpart 16-19, Second District
Part gallery, part hotel, Art’Otel Budapest features slick modern décor and more than 600 pieces of work from American modernist Donald Sultan. Sultan’s got some competition for guests’ attention though: the rooms overlook major landmarks such as parliament and the Fishermen’s Bastion. Tram line extension works outside the Art’Otel might be a little inconvenient for now, but that’s offset by (in addition to the above) the hotel’s excellent location near Buda Castle and the pedestrian shopping zone.
Do
Memento Park
Corner of Balatoni út and Szabadkai utca, 22nd District (Southern Buda).
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Waste not, want not, comrade. All the humungous Soviet-era statues that were scattered around Budapest were destined for the scrap heap once the regime fell in the late 1980s, but fortunately for those who like their history and tourist sites a little left of centre, they were saved and thrown together to make an outdoor museum on the outskirts of Budapest.
Memento Park features monolithic tributes to the usual suspects – Lenin, Marx, Engels and the Hungarian communist leader Bela Kun – alongside memorials to Soviet soldiers and the faceless masses. Capitalism thrives in the souvenir shop, which does a great trade in Soviet fur caps, South Park cartoon T-shirts and communist posters.
Getting to Memento Park can be an adventure in itself: you can catch a tram from the city centre and then transfer to a suburban bus (tip: the sub the suburban buses are yellow and depart not from the bays closest to the tram stop but from a station beyond them, behind a fenced-off building site) or save time and catch a direct bus from the city centre or hop in a taxi.
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