Buda, Pest and the Danube in between.
Which bath hall to pick in February. Whether the Parliament interior is worth a timed ticket. Where the ruin bars actually are once you leave the main drag. Every tour in the city, reviewed, plus the three day trips worth leaving it for.
Budapest’s most booked days, from the Castle hill to the bath halls.
Every review →The tours more travellers take than anything else in the city, and what each one is actually like once you are on it.
1
City Highlights Cruise with Welcome Drink
Review of Budapest’s one-hour Danube cruise with welcome drink, open-deck views, night lighting, practical tips, value, and what to expect.
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
The baths, the river, the Castle hill, the ruin bars.
Budapest is a small city with a very short list of things it does better than anywhere else. Start here, then work outwards.
The Danube splits the city, so most Budapest days end up on it.
Pest is flat and Buda is a hill, and the only place you see both at once is mid river. Daytime sightseeing runs take about an hour. The evening sailings are the ones people remember, when the Parliament and the Castle are both lit.
What a day in Budapest costs, from a bath ticket to a private car.
Every tour on the site sorted by what it actually costs. The city is cheap by western European standards and the prices below show it.
Bath entry, walking tours, an hour on the river, a market hall crawl. Most of the city sits in this band.
Dinner cruises, cellar tastings with food, cooking classes, the Danube Bend and Balaton day trips.
Private guides, a car and driver for the day, and the small group trips that go further than the coach routes.
Budapest sits on 120 thermal springs and bathes in them daily.
The water comes up hot out of the Buda hills and has done since the Romans plumbed it. Széchenyi is the big yellow one with the chess players outside. Gellért is the tiled art nouveau hall. Rudas keeps its Ottoman dome and its rooftop pool over the river.
All 28 thermal bath tickets →
The seventh district and Statue Park: Budapest does not hide its twentieth century.
Two periods leave marks all over this city. The old Jewish quarter, which was walled into a ghetto in the winter of 1944 and now holds Europe’s largest synagogue alongside its memorials. And the four decades after 1945, whose statues were moved to a field on the southern edge of the city rather than destroyed. Both are covered by guides who work in them daily.
The Jewish quarter and its memorials
The Dohány Street synagogue, the Kazinczy Street orthodox synagogue and the Emanuel memorial tree in the courtyard behind. Guides cover the ghetto winter of 1944 to 1945 and the community that lives in the district now.
33 tours
Statue Park, the bunker and the Trabant
The monuments that came down after 1989 stand in a field at the edge of the city instead of being broken up. Tours pair them with the hospital bunker inside the Castle hill and the housing blocks that most of the city still lives in.
25 tours
Ruin bars, cellar tastings and caves under the hill.
Bath halls exist elsewhere and so do river cruises. These three do not, and all three sit within a short tram ride of each other.
The Ruin Bar
In 2002 a group took over an abandoned building on Kazinczy Street, filled the courtyard with junked furniture and opened a bar. Szimpla Kert is still there and the format spread across the whole seventh district. The good ones are courtyards rather than rooms, they open late rather than early, and half of them run a farmers market on Sunday morning in the same space.
- 1Bar Crawl with a Local Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,112 reviews
- 2Ruin Bar Pub Crawl with Entry Tickets★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,028 reviews
- 3Budapest Original Ruin Pub Crawl Including 5 Shots★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 519 reviews
The Cellar Tasting
Hungary grows furmint at Tokaj, kekfrankos in Sopron and the big reds of Villany, and almost none of it reaches an export shelf. Budapest tasting rooms are usually a vaulted cellar with a table for eight. Expect six to eight glasses, a plate of cheese and sausage, and a pour of Tokaji aszu at the end.
- 1Etyek Wine Tasting Tour with 3-Course Meal★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 557 reviews
- 2Hungarian Wine Tasting (with Cheese and Charcuterie) in Budapest★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 531 reviews
- 3Budapest River Cruise with 1 Free Tokaj Frizzante and Audio Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 473 reviews
The Caves
The same thermal water that fills the bath houses hollowed out more than two hundred caves beneath Buda. Two of them run guided trips: Palvolgyi on a lit walkway, and Szemlohegyi for the crawling version with overalls and a helmet. Both are inside the city limits and reachable by bus.
- 1Buda Castle Cave Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 5,677 reviews
- 2Adventure Caving Tour with Guide★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 978 reviews
- 3Semlő-hegyi & Pál-völgyi Caves Guided Walking Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 343 reviews
Parliament slots and Saturday bath parties go before you land.
Most of Budapest can be booked from the hotel the night before. These cannot. They run on daily caps, fixed dates and a language rota that has nothing to do with when your flight arrives.
- 01Parliament Building Entry Ticket and Audio GuideThe interior runs on timed slots with a daily cap, and the English-language ones go first.
- 02Sparty – The Ultimate Late-Night Spa Party TicketThe night bath parties run on set dates in season and the ticket count is fixed by the pool.
- 03Dinner Cruise with Live Music and Folk Dance ShowEvening sailings with dinner fill weeks ahead between May and September.
- 04Buda Castle Cave TourCaving trips take small groups on fixed departures, and there is one trip a day on the crawling route.
Three days out of Budapest: the Bend, the lake, the wine villages.
The rest of Hungary is a day trip from here. These are the three that are worth the early start, and all three run as coach or minibus days with a guide.
Wine villages
When Budapest turns cold, the city moves indoors and into hot water.
The bath houses are better in January than in July, when steam sits over the outdoor pool and the chess boards stay out anyway. The rest of the wet-weather list is a market hall, a cellar, a kitchen or a concert. None of it cancels for rain.
Where the tours actually go
- Budapest995 tours
The Danube Bend55 tours
Lake Balaton25 tours- Every review on the site →
Just reviewed, on both sides of the river.
More new reviews →
Walking consultancy with alternative psychologist and author
Read our review →
Walk to recent and aged spiritual sanctuaries near Budapest
Read our review →
Guided Tour of the Parliament Building in Spanish
Read our review →
Vacation Photographer to collect great memories
Read our review →
True Crime Walking Tour in the Buda Castle district
Read our review →
UNESCO World Heritage Wine Day Tour in Tokaj Hungary with Food
Read our review →