The trip goes to... Budapest!

Pretty sure she isn't that openminded 😁


I thought @nightowl might get into trouble for that... Well, I'll certainly try to find some beer that can match the great Nordic tradition of Pripps Blå and Royal Classic 😉

I agree that Budapest is a wonderful city -- my wife is Hungarian and we visit with some regularity. We often stay at the Sofitel, near the Chain Bridge (pay extra for a view of the Danube), or the K and K Opera (near the beautiful Opera House). Both have great access to shopping, restaurants, pubs, and the metro. Stay away from restaurants on the Vaci Utca, the city's pedestrian shopping district -- overpriced and not authentic Hungarian cooking. If you want to experience the latter, try the Kisharang Etkezde on Oktober 6 Utca (not far from St. Stephen's Basilica). Lots of great coffee in this city and as one person has noted some excellent wines at great prices.

There is an Omega Boutique on Andrassy ut and several high end watch shops on or near the Vaci Ut. I don't have any experience with used watch shops in Budapest but I have found used watches at flea markets in other Hungarian cities.

I gather ConElPueblo is from Copenhagen. We will be there in March to visit our daughter.

Have to agree on Vaci utca. It's a nice walk for the architecture, but it's beyond a tourist trap. There are some good stores there though. Very typical street of that kind.

One thing worth keeping in mind about the wonderful architecture of Budapest is, that some of it is somewhat fake. Iirc this pertains mosty to Art Nouveau/Jugend buildings in the city centre. Very simple: After the war so much was damaged or leveled with the ground, and when they rebuilt it, some buildings were exagerated. Some were toned down, like the Buda Castle. When the latter was finally rebuilt, the communists were in power and found the pre-war style too aristocratic and lavish.

Oh, something you should visit is Terror Haza - House of Terror - in the old KGB headquarters.

I'm Hungarian, and living in Budapest 😉
If you have any questions feel free to ask here, or in PM.

About the watch shops, flea market:
Forget the flea market. There are traders, who know everybody there, so you won't find any good watch, only what is left after them, or you will find these traders... You must be very careful with them, and not believe what they say, only what you see. Don't trust, that the watch has been serviced or anything like that.
You can find nice watch shops on Andrássy út (Omega, Tag Heuer, Hublot, Breitling), and there are a few near Váci utca (Rolex at Vörösmarty tér, Watch De Luxe at Kristóf tér, Orex at Váci utca, and some shops at Haris köz, Pilvax köz, and Petőfi Sándor utca).

Sights to see:
Citadella, Buda Castle, Synagogue, Parliament - Kossuth square, Heroes square (Hősök tere) - there are also the National Museum of Fine Arts, Chain bridge

If you want to go in a bath I'd recommend Széchenyi or Gellért bath. You can have a walk on Margaret island.

If you want to have a good coffee you should visit these shops: http://welovebudapest.com/cafes.and...roundup.of.budapest.s.speciality.coffee.shops

In the Jewish quarter you will find many restaurants, street food places, pubs made in old houses. (Kazinczy utca, Gozsdu udvar)
You can find many small restaurants, for example I would suggest you to visit Kádár étkezde - http://welovebudapest.com/cafes.and.restaurants.1/cheap.diner.1/kadar.etkezde

I recommend checking the welovebudapest.com webpage, they have great reviews, and infos.

Be careful with taxi drivers! (I suggest Uber, or bigger taxi companies, never trust the private taxi drivers without any company name/logo)

Oh, I just saw, that this was my first post in this forum, however I'm registered here for ~3 years... I'm usually more active on wus, and instagram (@macimancs)

One of the best little opera houses around . Like a music box. Great city. Order some tokaji wine

My wife and I visited Budapest last summer. Very nice city. Wr enjoyed the holocaust museum and the parliament tour and the free walking tour. We wanted to visit the pinball museum but it was closed for maintenance. After that we went to egar and then pesc both beautiful cities.

I nearly forgot about Hero's Square, and how could I forget about a statue of a Saint who I share the same name!

Guys, any suggestions as to where to check out some watches in Budapest? I am looking for Omega Speedmaster Pro.
THanks.

This might be a good place to start!

I was going to give few tips but they've all been pretty much covered thanks to @nightowl & @WiZARD
I used to live in Budapest but haven’t been there for nearly 10 years, until few weeks ago. I was amazed by all the improvements that have been made during a decade.
Amazing city, especially if you're the romantic type 😜
Sorry to disappoint, but don’t expect to find the vintage watch deal of your life, i can't recall any places apart from https://www.10ora10.hu/ that's been mentioned.

Back then there used to be a shop in Vaci street selling lovely vintage pieces, god nows it if it's still there...
The "Ecseri market" might be worth visiting, but again, I’m pretty confident that the local bargain hunters make sure it’s clean from any valuable timepieces. You will, however, find an ocean of Russian watches!

The best pieces for sale you’ll most likely find on chrono24 or eBay rather than in shops. You can try vatera.hu the "Hungarian eBay" for bargains, and arrange a local pickup…😗
I’ve picked up several bargains from there in the past: 2 vintage El Primero’s, a Speedy, a Chronomat and a Planet Ocean (when British Pound still had some value). What I’m never going to forget is that I missed out on a lovely Breitling Co-pilot AVI that sold for £2k… 🙁

Also, be prepared that restaurants, shops, etc. around Vaci street are way much more expensive than other areas, and there are so many other nice places around town, so don’t get stuck down to that part.
Visiting one of the baths is a must!

Looking forward to your travelogue
Have fun

Thank you for everyone for your reply. I am not looking for any vintage watches; I simply can't afford them. I was hoping to get a new Speedy from the blue market (is that how it called?) for a little bit reduced price from MSRP. Also, I heard Hungary has the highest VAT returns so I thought I might as well take advantage of my trip.

This will be my first luxury watch and its a gift from my parents for a celebration of my recent academic accomplishments.

Thank you all again.

Google "Vass shoes", skip 1-3 expensive lunches and get you some decent footwear that will last you 10+ years.

Thank me later Legoman... 😗

I feel so bad for neglecting this thread - after all it's been nearly a year since we went there! 😬

Let me start out by saying thanks for all the great advice. It was really fun going through it all with my girlfriend and she was astonished to see the helpfulness of people here.


We lived in a small apartment at József Attila Street, which is very central, but still nice and quiet. It was also very close to two of the restaurants we were going to try out, Borkonyha and Onyx. The first one is very low key and informal and the second is a "classic" Michelin restaurant with a large number of attentive waiters and white cloth over the tables. Both places were swamped with Danes, to our surprise! At Borkonyha the majority of the guest were Danes and I counted more than 30 visitors who spoke Danish 😵‍💫
Both restaurants are highly recommended (we had lunch at Onyx) and you should really go there if you are in town.

We visited a few museums and saw a lot of the city on our own - a very interesting place, I must say. Completely over-the-top architecture in some places and in other places it is as if WWII has just ended! The feel of the place is very young and forward-looking and it seems as if the young Hungarians have embraced the hipster-culture completely. Very fashionable people everywhere. I thought the Art Nouveau Cafe at the Alexandra bookshop and the New York Cafe was a treat and so was the many lavishly adorned buildings. You could spend hours just looking at facades and discovering small details everywhere.




I think the Central Market Hall was great too. Made me want to settle down in the city and work my way through all the different wares in that place, one shop at a time. Enjoyed grossing out the girlfriend with some of the less commonly seen butcher's cuts, too 😁
We had a fun time at a local market and I could have walked away with any number of old, Russian watches. To be honest, the sheer amount of the was overwhelming and I didn't look too closely at them, so I might have missed a bargain...




Finally, I have to mention the many Art Deco focussed furniture and interior design stores... After going through a few of these, I have started to appreciate this particular style a lot more and I would love to incorporate some of the fantastic pieces of furniture made in Hungary in the 30's into our own house. I'm sure that @Syrte would experience the same feeling!

Oh no, that was just some random couple... 😗

Glad you enjoyed it, it was great to read your travelogue 😀