Hungary: Budapest
This has been one of the top recommended cities by friends here in Naples, and I can see why. Flights were quick and affordable and the city was overflowing with things to do for both adults and children. We wished we had been there for longer than a four day weekend. We flew there on RyanAir and came back on WizzAir to make the most of the weekend (the RyanAir return flight came back at 6am on Monday).
Thursday
We landed and took a Bolt taxi (booked on the app) into the city center. This seemed like the cheapest and easiest way for us to get to the hotel and it was nice to not have to deal with any headaches. One hiccup was that the app said we could book a car that provided a child seat (which we had researched before hand and informed our decision to not bring our carseat) and what they provided was a tiny booster. Needless to say I got on Amazon to pull the trigger on ordering a SafeRider vest for trips like this.
We stayed at the Kozmo Hotel on the Buda side of the river in District VII. It is on of Hilton’s Small Luxury Hotels of the World and we were able to use points and rewards to get the whole stay for free AND get an upgrade. It was a gorgeous hotel, the restaurant was fantastic, and the spa delightful. It was definitely in a quieter area and we were a bit further out so if you are wanting to be closer to the “action” so to speak and also looking to stay at a Hilton, I would stay at the big one near the palace.
Friday
Happy Valentine’s Day! After a lovely hotel breakfast, we headed to the Széchenyi Thermal Baths. Thermal waters and spas are such an incredible part of Hungarian and Budapest culture and it was the #1 thing recommended to me by friends who had been to Budapest. Many of the spas are not child friendly and even most of the pools at this one were not available for people under 14. We booked our tickets online ahead of time and selected a private changing cabin and “skip the line” privileges.
What I wish I had planned for: towels, flip flops, and bath robes. We only planned to spend a few hours at the spa before continuing on with our day so we didn’t pack full beach bags of stuff. Just our suits, some toiletries to wash our faces and brush our hair, and that’s it. We incorrectly assumed we could rent towels and robes and just kind of spaced on the whole shoe thing. Luckily, our hotel let us borrow pool towels and we took the spa slippers provided in our room. It ended up working out but robes would have been VERY nice considering it was in the 30°s outside and the outdoor pools were the only ones our son could go in. Needless to say, I’m a wimp in the cold these days and I was freezing.
Getting into the spa was very easy. We checked in with our QR code, were given electronic wrist bands, and swiped in through a turn style. We then use a little screen on the wall and our wrist bands to assign ourselves to a private changing cabin. The wrist band also functioned as the key. The cabin was totally worth it for privacy and to store our stroller and backpacks.
Walking through the spa and seeing the indoor pools on the way to the outdoor pools was cool just to see what they had in terms of thermal waters and spas. There were different size pools, different temperatures, saunas, whirlpools, etc.
Once outside, we got in the water as quick as possible. There are two spa pools on either side of a bigger swimming pool used for lap swimming. Kids under 14 are only allowed in the spa pools.
We had a fantastic time and stayed out there until my son started getting cold from his hair being wet.
A few perks I appreciated: there was a tumble dryer for bathing suits, like what you might find in the bathroom at a public pool and there were hair dryers. I didn’t go under water but my son has long hair and it was soaked. I was very glad that we could dry it before heading back out into to cold.
From the spa, we headed for the main playground in City Park. On our way, we passed Vajdahunyad Castle and the big ice skating rink (maybe the biggest I’ve seen). It was about a 15 minute walk to reach the playground and we passed a cafe on the way, in case you need coffee or a snack. This playground was easily the most well done playground I have ever seen. It also had some of the highest climbing equipment for kids I have ever seen. There may have been just as many adults as there were kids enjoying all that it had to offer (my partner and myself included). Had it not been as cold as it was, we probably could have hung out here all day because there was, you guessed it, a cafe.
We hopped on a bus and went to grab lunch at a spot recommended by a friend - Karavan Food Fair, which is a market made up of food trucks with a great garden area filled with picnic tables. We all picked our lunch from different spots and sat to enjoy.
We had planned to walk to St. Stephen’s and then along to Danube after this but we all needed to warm up so pivoted and headed to MiniPolisz, an indoor play place for kids where they get to be adults for the day. It’s basically a mini city with 27 different stations - a vet’s office, a radio station, a hotel, a market, a mechanic, a bank, a train station, an insurance office, a hair dresser, an airport — the list goes on. Kids get to play and learn how to do each of the jobs for each of these spots. My son was in absolute heaven. The staff was lovely and each kid gets a workbook that is stamped, almost like a passport, to show which stations they complete. At the end of the visit, they also get a prize (we got a coloring book).
Leaving here, we took a stroll towards St. Stephen’s and along the way saw a ferris wheel, which my son asked to ride. Tickets were very affordable and the views were stunning. I especially loved looking over to Buda and seeing Buda Castle and Fisherman’s Bastion. The view of St. Stephen’s and Parliament on the Pest side of the river were also incredible.
We ended our day out by visiting the Shoes on the Danube memorial. Sixty pairs of shoes mark the site in Budapest where fascist Arrow Cross militiamen shot Jews and threw their bodies into the river in 1944 and 1945. This felt important and well worth stopping to visit and take a breath to remember what has happened in all of the places we so quickly pass through on these weekend trips.
We grabbed a Bolt taxi back to the hotel for our dinner reservation. The hotel architecture is absolutely beautiful (info about SLH hotels) and dinner was delicious. My partner even surprised me with flowers waiting at the table.
He hopped into his online grad school class and my son and I happily crawled into bed to get ready for another day of exploring.
Saturday
Let me start off by saying that today was a “getting humbled by a toddler while traveling” day. I could go on an on about how my son is a great traveling, he’s been to 21 countries at the age of four, he’s normally an easy kid to travel with (all true statements), but you know what else is true? Traveling with little kids can be really hard. And some days just don’t go as planned. It was pretty apparent about halfway through the morning that he just needed an afternoon of relaxing so that’s what we did.
We headed out after breakfast and took the metro (our first time using is this weekend and as with all the public transit so far I was very impressed with how easy it was to navigate) to a tram to head over to the Buda side of the river. Over here, we walked around Fisherman’s Bastion and went into the Matthias Church. The views from this area (the Castle District) are incredible looking over to Pest. And the inside of Matthias Church is absolutely stunning. I haven’t seen anything quite like it. We also decided to climb the tower, which was 197 steps (200 included the few steps to get up to the door from the street level). I would not recommend this with a kiddo who will not walk the entire thing by themselves. It is very steep and narrow. But wow were the views from the terraces incredible looking over both sides of the Danube. There was also a small gallery after the first 60 steps with a guide to give you a brief history of the church and the tower.
After walking around a bit more, we went to the Great Market Hall to do some shopping and grab lunch. This is the largest and oldest food market in Budapest. You can buy fresh food, shop for traditional souvenirs, and have your pick of things like ground paprika and Hungarian salami. Tip: it gets very crowded so I would not saw it is stroller friendly (particularly upstairs where there are food stalls and the souvenir vendors).
After lunch (which was fantastic, traditional Hungarian fare that I honestly can’t even name because I let my partner order while I wrangled our toddler to a table), we hopped a metro back to the hotel so we could finally do what our toddler had been requesting all day: the hotel spa pool.
We spent a few hours here then my partner and I traded off relaxing in the room with our son while the other got a spa treatment. He opted for a head and neck massage and I got a 60 minute facial.
All in all, it ended up being a lovely day and you won’t hear me complaining about spending a cold afternoon at the pool and spa.
Sunday
Sunday morning we headed to the other side of the river to take the funicular up to the castle district and walk around the Buda Palace (on the map, this triangle area is right where we had been the day before to see Fisherman’s Bastion and Matthias Church). The funicular was a ton of fun for my son, who calls them little trains, and gave beautiful views over the Pest side of the river. Once at the top, we meandered around the grounds of the palace. We were there early before the museums opened so we found a playground down below (there are elevators for those traveling with strollers!) on the other side of the Várkert Bazaar. After playing there for a bit we headed back up and went into the Budapest History Museum. This was actually a lot more fun than I expected and was a good mix of interactive displays (which my 4 year old enjoyed - like a bow and arrow you could pull back and a screen showed you how far you could shoot the arrow) and more traditional museum displays. We also got the tickets to go into St. Stephen’s Hall which was worth it - it was stunning.
We happened to be walking back to the funicular right at noon and caught the changing of the guard ceremony, which was cool to see. It was very intricate and choreographed. My son was over it within a few minutes but my husband was enthralled.
Afternoon highlights included a stop by St Stephen’s Basilica before hopping on the metro, lángos for lunch (a popular Hungarian street food that is a disc of dough deep friend then covered in toppings - I opted for the traditional sour cream and cheese) at Ligeti Lángos in City Park and Chimney Cakes at Kató Néni. Plus another playground stop - this city really is covered in playgrounds.
I was most excited for our Danube river cruise. We got tickets for the Legenda Dinner Cruise: it was beautiful to see the architecture of the city lit up at night but I I don’t know that I would recommend this particular cruise with little kids. It was 2.5 hours and the dinner was fine dining with no kid’s menu (my husband very sweetly took care of booking it to surprise me so I didn’t know anything about it ahead of time). If your kid is into beef consommé and duck breast, it would be great. My son enjoyed watching a movie and looking out the windows but he was not into the food. I was very glad he snacked before hand. I think we would have been just as happy with a shorter cruise. We looped back and forth probably 3x. One huge perk however was that it was fully enclosed and heated, which was necessary in the 20°F weather of mid-February. There was also live music which was beautiful. The service was fantastic and the value was definitely there for the money. It does look like the same company offers other types of cruises and I would definitely recommend Legenda as a company - their customer service was wonderful.
Monday
We had seen The New York Cafe recommended a lot in our Budapest research and it’s supposedly “the most beautiful cafe in the world” but I’d also heard the wait is 2+ hours and it’s over hyped. A Hungarian friend of mine recommended we check our Café Gerbeaud for a similar, old world, grand cafe feel. We went for coffee and traditional Hungarian pastries (I loved the dobos cake). We went shortly after it opened as it was pretty empty. It reminded me of Cafe Gambrinus in Naples. It was beautiful and near a lot of other things so it would be easy to stop by while out exploring.
After coffee we went to a local bookstore to grab a Hungarian language children’s book (we collect books in the language of every country my son has visited), made one final playground stop, and made our way back to the hotel to check out and order a taxi for the airport.
Getting Around
350 HUF = 1 EUR
We used the BudapestGO App to buy a 72 Hours in Budapest public transit pass. It was about $12.
Wish We’d Had Time For
This was recommended by both a friend and our hotel, we just didn’t have time since it was a bit of a ways out of the city. Tip: have HUF cash on hand as cards are not accepted and they don’t accept any other cash (i.e. EUR).
Take the Children's Railway and the Libegő chairlift (location): Since 1948, Budapest has had an official rail line operated by children with adult supervision. The small train lumbers through beautiful nature with panoramic vistas over Budapest. You could get off at Jánoshegy and take the Libegő chairlift down from the hillside, also with striking views. The Children's Railway departs from Hűvösvölgy, reachable in half an hour from the city center by public transport. Naturally, both of these activities are ideal for families with small children.