Prague vs. Budapest?

You'll find avid proponents of both cities on here so it's probably going to end up being '6 of one, half-dozen of the other'. In the end you may just have to flip a coin. I loved both of them and September would be lovely in either of them. If I had the chance to return to one it would be Budapest and probably not to Prague, others will disagree. One thing that might swing it one way or the other is how much time you'll have and where will you be coming from. If you'll be coming to either from Vienna then I would say Budapest is easier to get to, especially by train if that's how you're traveling.

As Nancy mentioned, opinion will be split. Having been to both, I am in the Prague camp and that's where I would return to first as well. You can't go wrong either way.

Vienna-Budapest can be as fast as 2h 40m and Vienna-Prague takes 4h 10m, both by Austria's RailJet service (their newer, faster train). Both cities also have good air connections to fly home. Those city links take you to typical sightseeing priorities, but time for just wandering is an assumed activity in both cases.

Budapest !!!!! Great walking city, fun, very good food, friendly people and loads of historical and cultural sites.

Generally speaking it really isn't 6 of one and a half dozen of another. Runs more 35 Prague vs 65 Budapest in this forum. But this forum has been unfairly influenced so don't trust the stats. Geographically Budapest makes more sense. From a time point of view if you will only have two full days you might be better off in Prague. Although it will require 3 full days including travel time. Budapest is more worth the effort if you have 3 full days, but it will only take a few hours to get there...... decisions, decisions....... Dang! Go to Budapest.

You might also look at what is going on in each town during the given time. Budapest has:

Foie Gras Festival (a goose never died for a higher or better cause)
Date: Sep 4, 2015 - Sep 6, 2015

Budapest Wine Festival
Date: Sep 9, 2015 - Sep 13, 2015

National Gallop
Date: Sep 18, 2015 - Sep 20, 2015

Sweet Days - Chocolate and Candy Festival
Date: Sep 18, 2015 - Sep 20, 2015

Budapest Pálinka and Sausage Festival
Date: Oct 3, 2015 - Oct 5, 2015

If you have a chance to see the National Gallop and you miss it, well it should be a crime. They close Andrassy ut and set up crafts and food stalls and they run horse races in period costume around Hero's square. We love it. If you come look for us and wave if you see us.....

Prague has cheaper beer and a fancy clock thing.....

Hard to decide. I think you would like both. Prague is more medieval, Budapest more stately with wide boulevards. Both are picturesque, Prague maybe little more. Fun city to walk around - Prague. Budapest is more spread out. Good food - Budapest. Strong Turkish influence makes the difference. With food comes beer and wine. Beer - Prague. Wine - Budapest. Friendly people - both. Maybe in Budapest even friendlier. Historical and cultural sites - both, maybe Prague little bit more. I tried to be as objective as possible but I am sure that some others could have slightly different views.

Like Ilia, I was going to recommend choosing based on your drink of preference. Hungarian wines are among the best and are cheap. But if you're beer drinkers, Prague is where to be!

Both cities have what you are looking for. I would probably choose the one that's easiest to get to/from. If that's about equal, then you're down to coin-tossing

They are both correct. Prague is the place to go for beer. Also a much better party city with night clubs and nudie bars galore. This is a prime location for UK Stag Parties. http://www.inyourpocket.com/prague/ has some pretty good information. In Your Pocket Guides found Budapest is so dull they didnt even provide a Nightlife section in their website. Although you might be interested in the Ruin Pubs http://ruinpubs.com/

Prague is the place to go for beer. Also a much better party city with night clubs and nudie bars galore. Hmmm, missed all that since I was enjoying the fabulous architecture, etc.

Hello dougpat4. Now I will increase the confusion. What kind of people do you wish to meet there ? Do you wish to see and talk with Hungarian people ? Or Czech people ? If I will choose a big city in "eastern" Europe, my primary criteria being its people, I think I would choose Krakow in Poland. (In Krakow the buildings that look old are very very old. In Warsaw the old buildings were destroyed by the German military during World War 2. The buildings that tourists see at Warsaw now were built in the 1950s or later).
Some repliers here mentioned wine at Hungary (Budapest). Yes, I like the white wine Gruner Vertliner, made in Hungary. But I can buy a bottle of that kind of wine made at Hungary, here in my home town in the state Missouri in the U.S.A., for a very low price. If you wish to know the winery name (on the label on the wine bottle), send a Private Message to me.

One of the things that has kept me away from Krakow is until very recently the entire Jewish History tourist scene in Krakow was run by .............. well, anything buy Jews. The whole idea was sort of creepy. I mean no disrespect, I just don't want to be reminded of that sort of history under those circumstances. In Prague and in Budapest you can actually have a Jewish guide show you the Jewish history of the towns; and it is very much worth the time and effort in both cities.

Prague has great beer halls. Budapest has great wine bars. Both the beer and the wine just taste better in the right environments. Its hard to beat the best Czech Beers. Hungarian wines can be very, very good; but California does as good if not better.

As for meeting locals or finding yourself in situations where you as a tourist are the minority in the situation; while still being in the tourism flow it would be a lot easier in Budapest. Tourism in Prague is generally confined to 3 small well defined zones where the tourists out number locals 100 to 1. Budapest is more of a larger environment very much like Paris where tourist and locals occupy the same zones. Over the last 40 years I have been to something shy of 40 countries, many multiple times. I can not think of a place where the people were more hospitable than in Hungary.

Prague has better older architecture in those tight zones while Budapest is sort of an 1880 city stuck in time.

On my many trips to the Austrian Alps (and 2 to Switzerland), we've gone through Munich. It's one of the great Bohemian cities well known for its beer halls and nightlife. And it's a place you can easily spend a week.
We also went to Prague and Budapest on our last trip--along with Vienna. All three are very lively cities with great historic sights.
Beer's cheap in Prague, but the rest of the city is now pretty expensive. It's also got a bunch of English tourists (thugs) coming in on weekends on cheap airlines out of Gatwick. We took the Pub Crawl tour there, and had a great time.
We loved Budapest, and it's famous for all their grunge bars that simply cannot be beat. We felt much less threatened by roaming partiers there at night. The young people of Budapest are very friendly, and we'll be back to the city soon.

Vienna is a very classy European city--the music city of Europe. And it is also a great nightlife city.
It's nice to say you cannot go wrong with any of these fine cities for a visit.

David is right. If I should name just two cities where I drank the best beer it would be Prague and Munich. But in Prague it is substantially cheaper. Munich is actually not a Bohemian city but Bavarian. Prague is Bohemian one, it is capital of Bohemia and also of the whole Czech Republic while Brno is capital of Moravia.
Before revolution of 1989 Czech people lived all over Prague including Old Town and Mala Strana (Little Quarters). But with the arrival of capitalism prices in these unique medieval neighborhoods went up and up until they pushed out most of the residents and now you can find mostly hotels and businesses there. For authentic Czech pub life I would recommend nearby neighborhood Zizkov. I read somewhere that it has the highest concentration of pubs per square kilometer.

Illja, Are there property taxes in Prague? Must be, and that must be what drove the Czechs out of the neighborhoods. Budapest like a lot of the old eastern block had no property taxes until a couple of years ago and even those are sort of token in value. The few real tourist zones like Castle Hill, Vaci utca and Andrassy ut have fewer Hungarians living in them because the property values went up and the owners made significant profits by selling and moving to the suburbs. Shame to hear the Czechs were driven out of their homes. That's sad and I will look at Old Town a little differently now.

I love Budapest -- I had the privilege of living there back in the day and used to return annually because I have a love in my heart for it that I don't have for anywhere else, including Paris, where I live -- but these posts that denigrate Prague to Budapest's favor seem to me really unmerited. Both cities have so much to offer, and I do agree with Nancy that it's about 6 of one, half-dozen of the other if you look at the attributes of each city. Yes, Prague is plagued with stag parties (I don't know to what extent now) but Budapest is plagued with graffiti.

The bigger point is -- Prague is a more spectacular architectural jewel, and really unique and gorgeous. Budapest has some lovely vistas -- the bridges at night!! illuminated over the Danube - and feels more 'homey.'

For the traveler trying to decide which one to visit for the FIRST time, all the rest is a bit extraneous. It depends on which fits with your schedule better and what YOUR interests are, and where you find better (more to your taste and budget) lodging for your dates.

I don’t think anyone was denigrating Prague. One person’s negative is another’s positive. Based on what appears in this thread if I were still 20-something I would head to Prague before I would Budapest. The idea is to point out differences and let the reader sort through them. Wine vs Beer was a good comparison. Compact vs wide open is another good one and might advise someone on how long to stay in each. For well-defined restored pre-baroque architecture Prague is the place. For a larger setting of newer architecture (neo classical, art deco, art nouveau, secessionist, Bauhaus, etc.) I give a strong edge to Budapest; but yes can find all of that in Prague as well, but outside the usual tourist zones and not in as well a preserved but relatively unrestored context. Budapest does have the grafati problem but it has shown some improvement in the last 3 or 4 years, but still a ways to go. The unrestored nature of so many of the neighborhoods has given rise to terms like “gritty”, but interesting is that while the resources don’t exist to renovate they still have a lot of pride and the ancient buildings have crumbling stucco but are otherwise very clean as are the streets and public places. So they are both good; but I wouldn’t say go to either as they are both the same. I would say go to the one that speaks to you the most and/or within the total context of your schedule has the most advantages.

Kim, since you lived in Budapest I bet you could be a lot more help than me at the Hungary forum. You should drop in and help out.

Yes, James, there are property taxes in Prague (and in Czech Republic). But they are still negligeable in comparison with the USA. At that time most people in Prague did not own their apartments. They rented from the state and rents were heavily regulated. Gradually buildings were falling into private hands, rents went up, many times drastically and also owners were moving people out for reconstruction and modernization. After that of course people were not coming back because it is more profitable for the owner to have a hotel, business etc. there than rentals. And something similar happened in the center of Cesky Krumlov. James, if you want to see something similar like C.K. but without tourists and foreigners and all that disneyfication, go to Loket (close to Karlovy Vary). I stayed there in hotel Elbogen in June and was the only guest there. If you want to see something like small Prague but without foreign tourists go to Olomouc or walk around Prague neighborhoods: Vinohrady, Zizkov, Albertov, parts of Nove Mesto. If I want to see Old Town, Mala Strana, Hradcany I walk there around 7 am. Drunkards are already in bed and hordes did not arrive yet.

I have visited both cities in the past year and am already in the process of planning next year's trip--back to Budapest, with some forays to other cities this time now that I know the town my family came from. While Prague is also very beautiful I can honestly say I don't think I'll ever want to return.

I had excellent meals in both cities, enjoyed wonderful museums in both and felt comfortable walking around and exploring, metros both easy to navigate but overall I found the crowds in Prague (late May, Budapest was in August) to be exhausting and the people not nearly as friendly as the Hungarians. Prague was also crammed full of American tourists, so I sometimes didn't feel like I'd even left the US. I'd just come from Poland where I was surrounded by Europeans tourists, much preferred that experience.

It's also a quick trip via train from Vienna to Budapest, just 3 hours at most. Both have much to enjoy, though, so you might just want to flip a coin or base your decision on ease of travel.

Ilja; thanks for the tips. New places are always exciting. Last night I did a little research into Czech property taxes and it appears that they are based on size and not value. If the information I found on the internet is correct (who knows) then a 1000 sf apartment was less than $50. Cant see that forcing them out; but then i don't trust what i find on the internet either. In Budapest I have purchased several properties from folks that inherited the apartment from the state when the change took place. Sort of, you are living there, it is yours. I guess they weren't as generous in the good parts of Prague.

Ilja, David said the word "Bohemian". He was not talking about Bohemia in the Czech Republic.

Ron, sorry if I misunderstood. But ...."one of great Bohemian cities" - Bohemian city is in Bohemia like American city is in America. It could look differently if it was ...one of great bohemian cities.

Yes Ilja. Definitions of the word "bohemian", in a Webster's Dictionary :
* Of or pertaining to a social gypsy (originally in France).
* Unconventional, ...Questionable tastes, Free and easy.

An example of usage of the word "bohemian" in a sentence : "She was of a wild, roving nature, inherited from father and mother, who were both Bohemians by taste and circumstances" - written by Thackeray.
In WordNet Dictionary : * A nonconformist writer or artist who lives an unconventional life.
*bohemian - unconventional in especially appearance and behavior. Example : "a bohemian life style".
Related words : Affable, beatnik, deviant, dissentor, drop out, folksy, fringy, haymish, hippie, iconoclast, maverick, offbeat, recusant, unaffected, unceremonious, unconstrained, unorthodox.

Ron, I recall a funny clothing (?) radio commercial in which the speaker, a Mittel-Europan accented New Yorker retorted to the narrator who bragged about "The New Bohemia", "Lissen, I'm from the 'Old Bohemia' and it wasn't all it's cracked up to be."

Not to get too off track, but I would never in a million years think that definition describes Munich.

Lovely, yes. But unorthodox and non-traditional? You've got to be kidding me. It's possibly the most traditional city I've ever been to. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Back to the original question, I loved Budapest and didn't like Prague. Part of it was the food (delicious in Budapest, disgusting in Prague), part of it were the crowds (insane in Prague, less so in Budapest). But I loved the beer and WW2 resistance sites in Prague. Visit it sometime on another trip that adds Berlin (the city that more defines small b bohemian) and probably Dresden.

Budapest makes a lot of sense if you're coming from Austria.

Hello Emily. I was at Munich (a long time ago). I perceived the naked people on the grass lawn in Englisher Garden in Munich as being unorthodox and non - traditional. Also, at Marienplatz in central Munich, some of the German men were crude sorts of people (not culturally refined). And, more than 50,000 Turkish people are residents in Munich. I guess that could cause Munich to qualify as being non - traditional in Germany.

Munich is a cultural center, vibrant , yet provincial, very Catholic and traditional too as in the rest of Bavaria. It isn't the only city in Germany where you find a large group of non-Germans living there. In Düsseldorf one percent of population , ca 6,000 plus are Japanese, who have been there for more than 30 years.

David said Munich is a bohemian city, known for its night life. Fred said Munich is very Catholic. I am not aware that the night life in Munich relates to the Roman Catholic religion.

Well, why choose??? just cut something else out and visit them both since you have so many positives for both cities.

Prague used to be my favorite European city... until I visited Budapest. I really do enjoy them both but that view of the river and city from the Buda side is amazing. I also loved the food, and because I did not know a lot about Budapest before I went I was surprised at how stunningly beautiful it is. I would return to either city, but I do realize with each passing year Prague becomes more touristy... but, for a great experience in Prague... get up about 5 in the morning and take a walk down to the Charles Bridge and watch the sunrise. For those who complain about too many tourists there are times to enjoy the city virtually by yourself... then take a nap or long lunch while everyone else crowds to see the sights that you have enjoyed on your own.

Good, you can see the Catholic influence in Munich as well as its bohemian side, depending on where you visit in the city. Both are valid. I don't dispute its bohemian side, you see that in Schwabing.