A Stylish Weekend Holiday Relaxing In Budapest

By James Stone -

The beautiful city of Budapest on the Danube is a stunning location for a relaxing weekend holiday .

With a growing number of routes available to the Hungarian capital from across the UK, we found Budapest easy to get to and booked our hotel online before travelling.

Because we wanted to relax during our time away, we opted for the Radisson SAS Beke, a modern, comfortable hotel situated in a restored 19th century Art Nouveau building, with elegant rooms, a pool and a good restaurant for the more sophisticated holiday maker.

A relatively small capital city, with just 1.7 million inhabitants, Budapest is easily navigable, with wide avenues and a good public transport system consisting of buses, trams, trolley buses and boats.

Budapest consists of two old towns, Buda on the right bank of the Danube and Pest on the left bank, and both sides of the river offer plenty of diversions. The city has been dubbed 'the Paris of Central Europe' and is a really lovely place to simply walk around and explore.

The first town was founded by the Romans on an old Celtic settlement. It become the seat of the Hapsburg rulers during the 1500s, grew rapidly in the 18th and 19th centuries and suffering significant damage during World War II and under Communist rule, though many impressive buildings still survive.

Buda Castle provides a fantastic view across the city and the impossibly blue Danube and is a lovely site to walk about for a couple of hours, with its Baroque palace and museums. We also spent some hours strolling around the pretty Margitsziget's Island park in the Danube, which covers more than 2.5km and has a charming promenade, rose garden and a musical fountain.

Whilst on holiday we paid a visit to the historic Kiraly Baths, built by the Turks in 1565, on the morning of the second day, taking a dip in the four mineral pools under the delightful central dome and sitting in the hammam (steam room) until our troubles slipped away.

Budapest has the largest number of shopping centres in Europe and we spent the afternoon browsing around the shops, including stylish Andrassy Avenue and the stunning Great Market Hall, picking up old books, jewellery and local handicrafts.

Our final day on holiday was spent at the famous Gellert baths, built in 1918 in an old Art Nouveau palace, where we swam in the thermal pools, visited the outdoor wave pool and had a fabulous Thai massage.

The light summer evenings we spent in Budapest were taken up with sampling local cuisine in the many excellent restaurants, a trip to the opera at the lavish neo-Renaissance Opera House, and a delightful sunset cruise down the Danube.

Holidaying here, I found Budapest a captivating city that provided a striking background to a long, relaxing weekend and would certainly recommend it to anyone looking for the perfect location for a European city break.

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