Hungary starts on the Danube.
Which boat passes the Parliament at the hour it is worth seeing. Which thermal bath suits a first soak. What a night in the ruin bars really costs. Every tour in Hungary, reviewed.
Every Budapest trip owes the river one evening.
All 45 Danube cruises →
Sightseeing runs by daylight, dinner and a band after eight, and a prosecco boat that barely pauses. These three carry the most travellers; the full list sorts the rest by the kind of evening you want.
One hour, both banks, every bridge
Buda hill on one side, the Parliament on the other, and just enough deck time to work out which bridge is which before dinner.
A long table, a live band, the city sliding past
Boats push off around eight. The lights come on halfway through the main course and the band plays until the Chain Bridge.
Prosecco poured without a tab
Aperol, beer and prosecco while Buda Castle rolls past the rail. Loud, cheap, and by far the busiest thing on the water.
The six Budapest days most trips are built around.
The river after dark, the yellow bath house in the city park, the castle hill, the courtyard bars of District VII, the Parliament and the market hall. Here is how each one books.
Budapest is a spa town that grew a capital on top of itself.
Thermal springs come up under both banks, and the city has bathed in them since the Ottomans domed the first ones over. Széchenyi is the yellow palace in the city park, Gellért keeps its Art Nouveau tiling, Rudas puts a rooftop tub over the river. Tickets, cabins and massages all book separately.
The tours Hungary books more than any other.
Every review →More travellers take these than anything else on the site — and what each one is actually like on the day.
1
City Highlights Sightseeing Cruise
One hour on the Danube from Dock 42 with a welcome drink and skyline views. Night cruises make Budapest’s lights pop.
From · $18
Read our review →
2
Unlimited Prosecco, Beer and Aperol Spritz Cruise
from $29
3
Széchenyi Spa Day Ticket with Optional Upgrades
from $51
4
Nighttime or Daytime Sightseeing Cruise
from $14
5
By Night Sightseeing Cruise with Welcome Drink
from $15
6
St. Stephen’s Basilica Entry with Options
from $12
7
1-Hour Evening Sightseeing Cruise with Drink
from $29
8
Budapest Danube Cruise and Dinner Options, Live Music and Dance
from $54
What a day in Budapest actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Budapest is the cheapest of the grand European capitals to book, and the spread shows it.
Bath tickets, hour-long cruises, walking tours and the market crawls. Most of Budapest lives here.
Dinner cruises, wine tastings, cooking classes and the day trips up to the Danube Bend.
Private guides, full days on the plain, and the long evenings with dinner, show and drinks all in.
District VII drinks in courtyards nobody bothered to repair.
Szimpla opened in a condemned block in the old Jewish quarter in 2002 and the rest of the district followed. Mismatched furniture, a bathtub for a sofa, a different room on every floor. The crawls run nightly and get louder as they go.
All ruin bar nights →
Three things only Hungary hands you.
Cathedrals and river cruises exist everywhere. Playing chess chest-deep in hot water, drinking in a condemned courtyard and watching five horses driven by one standing rider do not.
The Bath House
Budapest sits over a fault line that pushes up water hot enough to bathe in, and it has been used that way since the Turks domed the first baths over the springs in the sixteenth century. Széchenyi wrapped a neo-baroque palace around its own in 1913. Old men still play chess at chest height in the outdoor pool, in January, in the steam.
- 1Széchenyi Spa Day Ticket with Optional Upgrades★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 23,911 reviews
- 2Mandala Day Spa & Luxury Pool Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 2,604 reviews
- 3Budapest Széchenyi Thermal Spa Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 2,178 reviews
The Ruin Bar
When the old Jewish quarter emptied out, the courtyards were derelict and the rent was nothing. Someone put a bar in one and left the plaster exactly as it was. Two decades on the formula has not changed: a condemned block, junk-shop furniture, a Trabant parked in the middle of the room, and beer cheaper than a coffee in Vienna.
- 1Guided Pub Tour to Ruin Bars with Games & 6 Shots★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,641 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 Puszta Ride
An hour and a half east of Budapest the country flattens into the grassland Hungarians call the puszta. The csikós horsemen who work it ride in blue tunics and finish every show the same way: one rider standing across the backs of two horses, driving three more ahead of him at a gallop.
- 1Full-Day Puszta Tour with Lunch and Show★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 180 reviews
- 2Puszta Horse Show and Countryside Visit★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 131 reviews
- 3Budapest Puszta Day Trip to Kecskemet with Horse Show & Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 64 reviews
The Danube Bend is ninety minutes upstream.
The river turns hard south at Visegrád under a ruined citadel, Esztergom keeps the largest basilica in the country, and Szentendre paints its houses ochre and sells art from every second doorway. Further out sit Gödöllő’s palace, the cellars at Tokaj and the horse country on the plain.
All day trips from Budapest →
Four things in Hungary that will not wait for you.
Most of Budapest can be arranged from the hotel the night before. These four run on fixed calendars, guided slots and small rooms.
- 01Parliament Building Entry Ticket and Audio GuideEntry is by timed guided slot only, and the English-language times go first.
- 02Organ Concert in the St. Stephen’s BasilicaConcerts run to a published calendar, not on demand. Pick the night before you book anything else.
- 03Adventure Caving Tour with GuideOveralls, a helmet and a guide for a handful of people at a time. Departures are few and the weekend places go first.
- 04Hungarian Chimney Cake Workshop in the City CenterA dozen aprons to a sitting. Walk-up places barely exist.
Budapest in the cold is better, not worse.
The city gets grey Novembers and hard Januaries, and its best rooms were built for exactly that. Thermal water at 38 degrees with snow on the terrace. A synagogue and a basilica to walk through. A cave system that has no idea what the weather is doing. A kitchen with a glass of Tokaji already poured.
- 1Széchenyi Spa Day Ticket with Optional Upgradesfrom $51
- 2Buda Castle Cave Tourfrom $19
- 3Mandala Day Spa & Luxury Pool Experiencefrom $38
By place — Budapest and beyond
Budapest899 tours
Buda Castle Hill56 tours
The Danube Bend52 tours
Out of the city55 tours
Lake Balaton29 tours
Tokaj & the wine country20 tours
Gödöllő11 tours- Every review →
By experience — what kind of day is it?
Three days in Budapest that do not double back on themselves.
The Parliament
Great Market Hall
The thermal baths
Ruin barsJust added, from Budapest and the Bend.
All recent →
Visegrád Hike & Castle Tour with Ferry from Budapest
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Vacation Photographer to collect great memories
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True Crime Walking Tour in the Buda Castle district
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Trash Art Museum: Hungary’s First Scrap Metal Exhibition
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The only Wine Cocktail Club in Tokaj, Lunch & Fun, Hungary
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Half Day Tokaj Wine Tasting Tour in Mád Hungary with lunch
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Lake Balaton Tihany & Tapolca Cave Lake trip by Private Transport
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Discover Keszthely: Charming Private Walking Tour
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Audio visual multi-sensory chefs journey dinner experience
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