Travelling solo to Budapest - Part 1
The best type of trips are the ones where you spontaneously pick a destination, preferably one of the cheaper ones from Gardemoen, look for a hostel with a good rating, and then you are on your way. With little plans, and no expectations ✈️
This weekend adventure to Budapest was one of these trips, where I spent an incredible 3 fun days full of meeting new people and exploring from morning til late at night.
Day 1: Gardemoen, Buda and Pest
On a friday morning I jumped on the plane with my trusty little backpack and headed for Hungary. Took the local bus from the airport to "Flow spaces hostel" where I had booked in for the first night. When I travel alone, I like to have the freedom of changing accommodation if it's not quite what I pictured it to be. Fortunately this was not the case as the hostel was super central, social and clean, so I ended up extending for the next two nights. It didn’t take long until I started a conversations with some people from Canada and Egypt.
Budapest is divided into two parts, Buda on one side of the Danube river, and Pest on the other side. And after looking at Google maps for a little bit and leaving my backpack at the hostel, I wandered out the door and spent most of the first day exploring the Buda side. The hostel had a perfect location so I just walked to the nearest bridge, over the river, and up towards the large "park" and the area around the Citadella. It was a good stroll with some uphills and great views. The center of Budapest was nice and flat so you could see the whole Pest area looking across the river, including the lovely Parliament building.
The trip continued towards Gellert Hill, which was unfortunately closed, so then it was just a matter of following the route towards Várkert bazár and Buda castle. Gellert Hill is actually famous for its panoramic view of Budapest (will try again next time), while Várkert bazár is a historical complex with beautiful gardens and architecture. Buda Castle, also known as Budavári Palota, is an impressive castle complex that is on the UNESCO World Heritage List. The whole route so far had been a good mix of beautiful parkland and historic buildings and it was so nice to be able to reach everything just by using my legs.
Walking around is my favorite way to discover a new place, because you can stop wherever you want and take a couple of detours if you see something interesting. The last stop was the Fisherman's Bastion, also known as Halászbástya in Hungarian. Here there were many tourists and much more crowded than the other areas I had been to, but it was incredibly fun to walk around and look at the many buildings in the area. There were also many restaurants, ice cream shops and other things for you to easily spend a few hours there.
After buzzing around for a while, it was time to walk back to the hostel. There I was finally able to check in and take a good shower. After getting settled it was still early evening and luckily it didn’t take long to start a conversation with a couple of guys in the common area, and we ended up going out for some dinner and an evening walk around the city center of Budapest.
