Two cities, one river. Start on the water.
Which Danube cruise is worth the fare once the bridges light up. What a Széchenyi ticket actually buys you for the day. Whether the Parliament is worth a timed slot. Reviews of every tour you can book in Budapest.
A cruise, the Parliament, the cellars under Buda, and District VII after dark.
The four bookings a first Budapest trip tends to hang off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The first eveningCity Highlights Cruise with Welcome DrinkAn hour on the Danube with a drink in your hand, past the Parliament and under the Chain Bridge. Take the sailing that leaves as the lights come on.
02The timed slotParliament Building Entry Ticket and Audio GuideEntry to the Parliament with an audio guide. Slots are capped and the building shuts to visitors whenever the Assembly sits, so this is the one to fix first.
03Under the castleBuda Castle Cave TourThe limestone under Castle Hill is hollow, and a good deal of it is walkable. Cool in August, and the only tour here that needs a jacket in July.
04District VIIRuin Bar Pub Crawl with Entry TicketsSzimpla and the courtyards around it, with the entries paid for. Somebody who knows which bar is worth the queue and which one is a tourist trap.
An hour past the bridges, a table with dinner, or a deck with a glass in your hand.
More people book a boat here than anything else on the site. Three kinds of sailing, what it costs to get on board, and what each one is actually for.
Budapest sits on a hundred thermal springs, and swims in them all year.
Széchenyi is the yellow neo-baroque one in the City Park, open when it is snowing and full of men playing chess in the steam. Gellért is the art-nouveau one under the hill, quieter and tiled to the ceiling. Both sell a day ticket at the door, but the cabin option and the weekend slots go early.
The Budapest days out more travellers take than any other.
Every Budapest tour we have reviewed →The bookings that carry the most travellers in this city, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
City Highlights Cruise with Welcome Drink
Cruise Budapest’s Danube for an hour with a welcome drink, open-deck views, Parliament, Buda Castle, and brilliant evening lights.
From · $14
Read our review →
2
Unlimited Prosecco, Beer and Aperol Spritz Cruise
from $28
3
Széchenyi Spa Day Ticket with Optional Upgrades
from $51
4
Nighttime or Daytime Sightseeing Cruise
from $14
5
1-Hour Evening Sightseeing Cruise with Drink
from $28
6
Budapest Danube Cruise and Dinner Options, Live Music and Dance
from $54
7
Historic Cruise with Welcome Drink
from $12
8
St. Stephen’s Basilica Entry with Terrace Option
from $9
Six ways into Budapest, and the best day out in each.
The river that splits the city, the hot water underneath it, a castle hill on one bank and a parliament on the other, the ruin bars in District VII, and the Danube Bend an hour upstream.
Paprika, Tokaji, and a market hall with three floors of both.
Hungarian cooking is heavier and better than its reputation, and the wine is the part nobody expects. Book the Great Market Hall walk before lunch, the cellar tasting for the afternoon, and leave the chimney cake for the walk home.
What a day in Budapest actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Budapest is the cheapest of the great Danube capitals and it shows at the bottom of this ladder.
Walking routes, bath tickets, an hour on the river and entry to the landmarks.
Dinner cruises, full days up the Danube Bend, a private guide for a morning.
A car and driver for a whole day, the Balaton and cross-border runs, the once-a-trip splurges.
Three things that only happen in Budapest.
Plenty of European capitals have a river and a castle. A bath house you swim in through falling snow, a bar built inside a condemned tenement, and a hill you can walk through are not on offer anywhere else.
The Thermal Baths
The city sits on a fault line and the water comes up hot enough to scald. The Turks put the first bath houses on the Buda side in the sixteenth century and two of them are still working; Széchenyi, the enormous yellow one in the City Park, only arrived in 1913. The outdoor pools stay open through winter, which is why every photograph of them is mostly steam.
- 1Széchenyi Spa Day Ticket with Optional Upgrades★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 23,911 reviews
- 2Full-Day Gellért Spa Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 3,340 reviews
- 3Budapest Széchenyi Thermal Spa Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 2,178 reviews
The Ruin Bars
District VII sat half derelict for decades, and in 2002 somebody opened a bar in one of the condemned courtyards without repairing anything first. Szimpla Kert is still there, filled with mismatched furniture, a Trabant you can sit in and a wall of bathtubs. A dozen more followed in the surrounding blocks and the good ones are still not signposted.
- 1Unlimited Prosecco, Beer and Aperol Spritz Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 25,310 reviews
- 2Unlimited Prosecco, Beer & Aperol Spritz Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 3,371 reviews
- 3Bar Crawl with a Local Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,112 reviews
The Caves Under Buda
Thermal water dissolved the limestone under Castle Hill into a network of chambers and passages, and every century since has used them for something: wine cellars, a wartime hospital, a bunker. Several kilometres are open on a guided walk. It holds about ten degrees down there whatever August is doing overhead.
- 1Buda Castle Cave Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 5,677 reviews
- 2Semlő-hegyi & Pál-völgyi Caves Guided Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 343 reviews
- 3Private Cave Walking Tour in Budapest★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 52 reviews
Four Budapest bookings that will not wait until you land.
Most of this city can be sorted over breakfast on the day. These four run on timed entry, a parliamentary calendar and boats with a single seating, none of which care when your flight gets in.
- 01Parliament Building Entry Ticket and Audio GuideEntry is on timed slots with a cap on each, and the building closes to visitors whenever the National Assembly is sitting.
- 02Széchenyi Spa Day Ticket with Optional UpgradesWeekend day tickets for the big bath go before the weekend does, and the private cabin option is the first thing to sell out.
- 03Dinner Cruise with Live Music and Folk Dance ShowDinner boats sail on a fixed timetable with a single seating. The tables along the window are spoken for weeks ahead.
- 04Opera House Guided TourThe Opera House fits its tours around rehearsals, so there are only a handful of slots on any given day and they are dated.
From November the wind comes straight down the Danube.
Winter here is genuinely cold and the embankment is the worst of it. It is also the best time to be in this city, because everything Budapest is good at happens under a roof or in hot water: thirty-eight degrees outdoors while it snows, a concert in a gilded hall, three floors of a covered market, and a cellar somewhere with Tokaji in it.
By landmark — what you came to see
By kind of day — river, bath, table or road
Castle Hill, the Parliament, the water, and District VII after dark.
SzéchenyiThe newest Budapest tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
FoolsCode: EscapeRoom/Sightseeing tour with Actor Tourguide
Read our review →
Private, Personalized Pub Crawl, 3 drinks included
Read our review →
Budapest Urban Treats – Cake and Coffee House Tour
Read our review →
Budapest Urban Feast – Food Tour with Wine Tasting & Coffee House
Read our review →
Tapolca Cave Lake and Tihany/ Balaton private tour from Budapest
Read our review →
SaintAndrew City Privately Shopping and Picturesque
Read our review →
Budapest Market and Food Tasting Tour with a Local Guide
Read our review →