Our Budapest itinerary 8 days includes six full days in Budapest, divided between Buda and Pest. It also covers an overnight trip to Eger which is well worth the diversion. We feel it is two cities that reward
Day One: Budapest on Foot
Budapest rewards the walker. Our first full day in the city we gave ourselves over entirely to its streets. We joined a walking tour that wove us through the grand bones of Pest, block by revealing block.
We began at St. Stephen’s Basilica but only for a glimpse. Our plans had us going back for a tour and concert in a few days. We pressed on into the city’s layered history. At the Memorial for the Victims of the German Occupation, we paused. The installation is not subtle, nor should it be; it makes you think and demands something of you. We stood quietly with it for a while before moving on.
Finding Our First Kolodko Statue
Liberty Square brought unexpected delight. Budapest, we had been told, hides small bronze figures throughout its streets. Referred to as Kolodko statues, after the artist who created them. They are whimsical and easy to miss if you’re not looking down. We were looking. And there, tucked at Liberty Square, was Kermit the Frog, presiding with his usual air of cheerful bewilderment. We crouched beside him and laughed.
We paused by the Parliament Building, all spires and symmetry, glowing in the noontime light. We found a good angle, handed the camera to a stranger with a smile. The result was exactly the photograph we wanted. The two of us, and one of the most beautiful buildings on earth behind us.
The section below is a difficult subject about the Holocaust. Anyone who does not feel comfortable reading it should carry forward to the next section labelled Chain Bridge. click here to skip ahead
Shoes on the Danube
We had been warned, gently, by our guide before we approached.
In January 1945, Hungarian Arrow Cross militiamen — the fascist collaborators who did the Reich’s cruelest work in its final desperate months — came in the dead of night to the Jewish Ghetto. In temperatures of minus thirty, they marched their prisoners down to the river’s edge and issued a simple, devastating instruction. Remove your shoes, and place your valuables inside them.
The shoelaces were taken. Ankles were bound together in groups of roughly thirty people. Then one shot was fired. The person who fell was, in the most haunting calculus imaginable, the fortunate one. Being tied together as they were, they all went into the Danube. The river, cold and indifferent, was meant to carry them away and simply erase them from memory. There was no way anyone could survive. It was -30C. The river, what parts were not frozen, was dark, black and freezing cold. It was the middle of the night, no light anywhere. Blackouts were in place due to the threat of Allied bombings. Once in the river, people would have struggled but would be pulled down by their collective weight. A terrible and terrifying end.
The bronze shoes cast along the embankment today number sixty pairs, rendered exactly as they were in life. There are work boots beside elegant heels and most devastatingly, children’s shoes. In bronze, they refuse erasure. They hold the ground those people were made to leave. We stood among them without speaking. Some things don’t resolve into words. You just bear witness, and you carry it with you.
Chain Bridge
Our walking tour came to its end at the Chain Bridge, Budapest’s most iconic crossing. A fitting place to pause and take stock of everything the city had already given us.
Before we dispersed, our guide produced something charming and entirely unexpected — a Hungarian food bingo card he had designed himself, listing the local dishes and specialties we ought to seek out during our stay. It was exactly the kind of insider touch that no guidebook thinks to offer, and we studied it with genuine enthusiasm, already mentally planning our meals.
We crossed the Chain Bridge on foot, the Danube broad and grey beneath us, Buda’s castle quarter rising on the far bank. We wandered the waterfront for a while, letting the afternoon slow down around us, before making our way back to the apartment to rest.
That evening, we ventured out in pursuit of a Hungarian essential: goulash soup. The bowls arrived modest in size but generous in everything that mattered — dense with tender meat and potatoes, warming in the way that only a dish built by centuries of cold winters truly can be. A quiet, perfect ending to a day that had asked a great deal of us.
Day Two: May Day — Into the City Like Locals
Budapest has a way of making you feel, even as a visitor, that you belong to it. May 1st — Labour Day, a national holiday — gave us our best chance yet to test that feeling.
We made for City Park, where a sprawling open-air celebration had taken over the grounds entirely. Food stalls stretched in every direction. At the other end, a large dog show occupied a portion of the park with canine seriousness. Around it all moved Budapest’s families and couples, unhurried and content, spreading blankets on the grass, laughing with children. People were living the day exactly as a holiday is meant to be lived. We fell in among them gratefully, simply two more people on a park bench, lunch from the food trucks in hand, sun on our faces. It was a great day.
After the park we drifted through the surrounding streets with no particular agenda — the best kind of wandering — letting the city show us whatever it chose.
Margaret Island – an Oasis in the City
As evening came on, we crossed to Margaret Island. The island has its own quiet logic — a green ribbon in the middle of the Danube. We walked its full length along beautifully kept paths, the city a respectful distance on either side. At the far end, we found the musical fountain and settled in for the seven o’clock show. The water rose and fell in surprisingly moving choreography, set to music, lit against the darkening sky. From the classics to contemporary, including Michael Bublé, to make us proud at the Canadian content.
Leaving, we paused on Margaret Bridge and saw what postcards are made of. The setting sun cast itself full and warm against the Parliament Building’s façade — the spires and pale stone lit, but the shadows beginning their slow, inevitable climb. Inch by inch the light retreated up the walls, the golden warmth shrinking upward until, at last, it released its hold entirely and the building passed into the blue of evening. It lasted perhaps ten minutes. We didn’t move or speak much. There are moments that ask only to be witnessed, and this was one of them.
Day Three: Market, Bridge, and Ruin Bars
Budapest’s Great Market Hall is one of those places that arrives with considerable reputation, and on a Saturday morning it delivered on most of it. We wandered in as the stalls were still finding their rhythm, the lower floor coming alive with vendors arranging their displays — coils of sausage, wedges of cheese, vivid ropes of dried paprika, fruit stacked with evident pride, butchers setting out their cuts with practiced efficiency. It was genuine and sensory and worth every minute. We stopped at a bakery and, even though we were in Budapest, sampled a Bratislava pastry.
The upper floor leaned more heavily toward the tourist trade. Souvenir stalls and quick meals jostling for attention. The building itself, for all its undeniable beauty, wore that slightly self-conscious air that great market halls sometimes acquire when they know they are being admired. We appreciated the architecture sincerely, then slipped back out into the morning without any paprika or embroidered tablecloths, which felt like the right decision.
On the way out we admired the Liberty Bridge. We stood on it for a while and said what we both already knew: we liked it more than the Chain Bridge. It is greener, quieter, less performed — a working bridge that happens to be beautiful rather than a beautiful bridge that happens to work.
Ruin Bars – A Concept that Invites Celebration
That evening we made our way to one of Budapest’s celebrated ruin bars — those improbable, glorious experiments in which the city takes its abandoned buildings and breathes chaotic, creative new life into them. Arriving early meant we had the rare pleasure of a table, a drink in hand, and space to actually look. Umbrellas hung overhead in clusters, their colours mismatched and wonderful. The décor was deliberately, cheerfully unresolved — odd objects placed with a conviction that they belonged together. It worked. Budapest has a particular genius for this kind of reinvention, for finding the poetry in what other cities might simply demolish. The ruin bars are its most joyful expression of that instinct.
Day Four: Miniature Mysteries, a Charming Village, and Goulash Worth the Wait
Our morning unfolded at a leisurely pace, map in hand, hunting for Budapest’s beloved Kolodko miniature statues. These tiny, whimsical sculptures are tucked into the most unexpected corners of the city, and tracking them down proved a wonderful excuse to wander neighbourhoods we might otherwise have missed. By late morning we’d found four of the little treasures — each discovery earning a proper moment of delight.
From there we caught the train north to Szentendre, a village that felt almost too picturesque to be real. Cobblestone lanes wound past brightly coloured shops and alleyways strung with cheerful umbrellas, all bathed in warm afternoon sunshine. We settled into an open-air café, ordered ice cream, and happily watched the world stroll by. The return journey was even better — a ninety-minute riverboat cruise down the Danube as the sun dipped low, painting the water gold. An absolutely magical way to re-enter the city.
Beef Goulash
That evening we set out for Hungary’s iconic dish: beef goulash. The meal itself was wonderful — rich, deeply flavoured, and entirely worth writing home about — though getting it proved an adventure of its own. Forty minutes after ordering, we’d watched entire tables around us arrive, eat, and leave while our food remained a mystery. When we gently flagged down our waiter, the manager appeared moments later looking genuinely mortified. He apologized sincerely and insisted the meal would be on the house. We protested, he refused, and his parting request was simply that we leave a kind review if we felt so moved. We did, without hesitation.
Day Five: Castle Views, Sacred Music, and More Hidden Statues
We spent our morning crossing to the Buda side of the city, climbing through leafy parks until the castle grounds opened up before us. After several days exploring Pest, we both agreed that Buda held a quieter, more unhurried character — and, it must be said, noticeably cleaner streets. No slight intended toward Pest’s many charms, but the litter there had been a recurring disappointment. From the castle heights, however, none of that mattered. The views across the Danube to the Pest skyline were breathtaking, particularly with the day’s brilliant sunshine turning everything golden. We lingered longer than planned before eventually making our way back over the bridge to freshen up at the apartment.
Our afternoon was anchored by a visit to Saint Stephen’s Basilica, timed deliberately to coincide with the 4:30 organ concert — a 50-minute performance included free with admission every Monday. It was a genuinely captivating experience, the great instrument filling that soaring interior with remarkable depth, complemented beautifully by a trumpeter performing alongside the organist. One of the Basilica’s most extraordinary features was a small chapel depicting the crucifixion. Regardless of where you stood, Christ’s knees appeared to point directly toward you. It was so striking that I photographed it three times, half convinced I was imagining it. I wasn’t.
As evening settled over the city, we headed back out into the streets — not for any particular destination, but with our statue map in hand and the quiet pleasure of the hunt ahead. We found several more Kolodko pieces tucked into corners and alcoves, each one a small reward for paying attention. It was the perfect gentle close to another full and memorable day.
Day Six and Seven Had Us Heading to the Town of Eger
We headed to Eger, which is covered in a separate post.
Final Evening: Budapest, Signing Off
Returning from Eger, we spent our last Budapest evening simply — unwinding, packing, and preparing for the next morning’s train to Bratislava. No grand plans, no restaurant reservations. Just the quiet pleasure of a city we’d grown genuinely fond of.
If Budapest was the grand centrepiece of our time in Hungary, Eger was its quiet highlight. The wine cellars of the Valley of Beautiful Women, the castle’s storied ramparts, lángos in the park — it had an unhurried authenticity that stayed with us. If you’re planning a Hungarian itinerary, do make room for more than a day trip. An overnight there is something you will not regret.
Hungary had exceeded every expectation. Warm, generous, endlessly interesting — a country that rewards the curious traveller. We’d return in a heartbeat.
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Thanks for reading
As travellers, we leave you with this quote – Tourists visit. Travellers explore.
Cam and Meg