Thank you to everyone who posts here, especially Mr E. Your suggestions and tips were so helpful. I want to pay it forward with a trip report. We stayed in Budapest in early May for 7 nights before our river cruise. I thought that would be enough time—but it wasn’t! Partly because I spent so much time on Art Nouveau architecture.
We stayed at Mamaison Residence Izabella, primarily because it is more of an apartment hotel, and offered laundry in the apartment. Also, they were very good about answering my questions via email prior to the trip. I was happy with the choice, especially because it was a block away from M1 and just a 15min walk to Opera. However, the location wasn’t ripe with restaurants, like the area Mr E normally suggests. Our apartment was very nice, with a good-sized living room and bedroom, full kitchen, nice bathroom and a French balcony overlooking the garden area. It was clean, nice décor and quiet. Good storage, especially in the entryway. We did not do the breakfast option but did breakfast there one day and it was good. We did do laundry twice! Although we decided the dryer would take too long, so we partially dried the clothes and then used our clothesline to hang things near the balcony with the window open. You could safely add this to your list of apartment-style hotels.
My husband is over 65 so he travels free but I purchased a monthly travelcard just so I wouldn’t have to do the validation. We had to show proof about 3 times during our stay.
Monday, the day of arrival, we got to our hotel about 4pm and went to a local convenience store to get some snacks and drinks. Then we explored a bit and arrived at Hungarikum Bisztró a few minutes before they opened at 6:00. I had made a reservation a week or two in advance and Monday was the only day they had availability. It's very charming with friendly service and quite wonderful food and music. We loved it! We took an evening stroll along the Danube and saw the shoes and views of the castle.
Tuesday, we had an early Parliament Tour (9:15). It was probably a good way to start the week, since it did review some history, and of course the building has some glorious décor and art, which I appreciated. As my husband put it “it’s a grand building, built to memorialize grand men”. Nekd Keszul for coffee and crossiants. then to the Terror Haza Museum to see the atrocities of the communist regime. I recommend just downloading their app and following that through. I’m sure the audio tour is good, but I often find they don’t follow the pace I want to set. Plus it was pretty crowded and sort of noisy. We spent a little over an hour in the museum, and could have spent a bit more.
Had lunch at Szek. Thanks Mr E! We did have to ask for the lunch special as it wasn’t on the menu. Very nice chilled fruit soup and sausages.
We had to hustle for our 3:00 Memento Park GetyourGuide tour, which met on the Buda side. We took the tram but Metro would be faster. It was just us and another couple on the tour. Although it is far out of town, we really enjoyed this outing. It helped that we had glorious weather, especially for photography. Our guide spoke about the communist era (he grew up during it) and gave us good background info on the massive statues. I don’t suggest going there without a guide to give you perspective.
We had dinner at Cork Breakfast & Wine, which was very enjoyable. We did leave room for cinnamon sugar chimney cake somewhere in the Jewish Quarter. Note: one is enough to share! Quite a full day!
MORE to Come, sorry that I didn't edit!
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