I had a great time in Budapest. I booked three days at my hostel since I didn’t know what to expect and I think that was just enough time to experience the city. The area of the city that you stay in is actually rather small so there isn’t too much to actually see, at least I didn’t think so.
My first day there I went on the free walking tour that meets near the main cathedral. This was a great tour because it showed you both the Buda and the Pest side the city and lasted until dark. These free walking tours are found in most major cities and are a great way to really see the city the first day that you’re there.
Of course the main thing that people do in Budapest is drink. Budapest is famous for its ruin bars which are abandoned Soviet buildings that were renovated by artists and turned into bars and nightclubs. I found out that this is the main reason most people come to Budapest. The hostel I was staying and also had a bar crawl every night so you instantly had a group of people to go to the bars with.
Something I didn’t find it funny though was that I met tons of Americans in Budapest. By now I had traveled through several European countries and I was usually the only American at the hostel. But in Budapest for some reason there were more Americans than any other nationality. I’m not really sure why because in the rest of my travels they still think that Budapest had the largest concentration of American tourists. I think it was because of all the bars and because of the currency exchange. This made the country very cheap and the beer even cheaper.
