One thing that I forgot to post on my writeup of our trip to Budapest was a list of restaurants and places to see in Budapest.

I compiled this list with help from a friend who lives in Budapest.

Restaurants

Sir Lancelot – medieval restaurant meaning no utensils just bare hands. It is a show of it’s own.

Trofea – all you can eat restaurant with a pretty wide variety of food. Great place to get stuffed.

Malackert – – “Piggy Garden” – the name says it all – it is about 15-20 miles out of town though

Nancsi neni – traditional Hungarian place. Very famous in Budapest and very good food.

Fatal – another traditional Hungarian place. Very good.

Fat Mo’s Very nice “speak easy” restaurant in a basement. Very large selection of adult beverages. Open 5 PM – 1 AM.

Alabardos – – super expensive place in the middle of the castle district. Across from Matthias Church. The Castle there is awesome. This place or any of the places in the castle area were high recommended as good quality.

Apostolok – established 1902, great place, on the expensive side.

You can find an enormous collection of Budapest Restaurants here: they are sorted by districts.

When you are considering prices you can use 200 as the exchange – so a meal for 4000 HUF is roughly 20 USD.

Places to see

· Parlament (3rd largest Parlament building in the world) 60 min, 3200 HUF (16 USD) including English tour guideing, must have same day booking via e-mail

· Basilica 40-50 min – it is about a 10 min walk from the Parlament, free to visit the church part, 500 HUF (2.50 USD) to visit the dome – this later one is must if you have nice weather. There is no better spot to take great overview pictures of the whole city – lots of climbing though

· Synagoge – this is about 15 min walk from the Basilika – I have not checked the entrance fee – 30 min

· Castle area – this is across the river, you can walk, but it takes a while. A cable car goes up to it from the Buda side of Chainbridge – the castle area is pretty huge with tons of attactions (Fisherman’s Bastion, Mathias Church (not much inside, but nice from the outside), tons of 14th century residential buildings etc. You can take very attractive shots of the opposite side of the river with the Parlament building and the river bank at night from the castle.

· Gellert hill – Statue of Liberty – great vantage point too

· Heroes square – very touristy location with statues of all the Hungarian kings

· House of Terror – – this is my MUST SEE of Budapest. It costs about 6000 HUF (30 USD) with IR guidence in English and it take for about 4-5 hours to go through, but it provides the most authentic tase of life under hardcore communism in Hungary. Very professionally arranged 5 story museum in the heart of town.

· Walking street etc. Vaczy utca is the old traditional walking street, while Raday utca is a brand new one. I prefer the later one, it has very nice cafes etc.
Rudas Thermal Bath – Rudas Bath or Rudas fürdő is a thermal and medicinal bath that was first built in 1550, during the time of the Turkish occupation of Hungary. To date, it retains many of the key elements of a Turkish bath, exemplified by its Turkish dome and octagonal pool.

Margit Island

Gellert Thermal Bath One of most popular baths for tourists coming to Budapest. The medicinal spring here was already famed in the 13th century. The spa is decorated with a wealth of original Art Nouveau furnishings, artistic mosaics, stained glass windows and sculptures, although the interior of the hotel built alongside has lost many of these fittings over the years.

If you have a chance to get outside of Budapest you might want to check out these:
· Visegrad Castle
· Eger Castle – really cool place
· Balaton – largest lake in central Europe (anywhere is cool)
· Opusztaszer – quite a ways off (about 2 hours by car) – there is a national memorial park on the Huns