Three Days in Budapest, Hungary | Notes from the Archive
the second new-to-me country of my 2012 inter-railing trip!
*SHARED TO THE BLOG IN NOVEMBER 2025.
ARCHIVE / aar•kive / (noun): a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people.
Welcome to a new Notes from the Archive post, a series in which I am sharing some of my old & well documented travel notes to the blog. I’ve been keeping detailed notes and journals from my travels abroad long before I ever started sharing that content to this little corner of the internet. For some reason, it only dawned on me recently that, although not as thorough as my note-taking and journaling of today, this information could a. be useful to someone out there planning a trip, b. offer a glimpse into my travel days of yore, or c. just be fun for me to relive briefly under the pretense of being useful — so I figured why not share them here!
If you have stumbled across this post on a deep-dive through the blog archives, hello! I have done my darndest to make sure every piece of information shared here is just as relevant today as it was the day it was scrawled in my journal. I would also like to take a moment here to apologise in advance for any poor-quality photographs. You have been warned.
Today’s Notes from the Archive post — Three Days in Budapest, Hungary — covers everything myself and my then-boyfriend got up to during our 2012 inter-railing trip. Budapest was the third official city of the trip, in the second new-to-me country(!), and I was very pleasantly surprised by what the city had on offer!
Listed below is all the useful information I could garner from my trusty old journal, divided into the following categories for ease: getting there / where we stayed / where we ate / and where we touristed.
Enjoy, friends!
getting there
Here’s how we made the journey to Budapest:
we took a train from Zagreb Gl. Kl., the city’s main train station, to Budapest Déli station. The journey took a whopping 6-hours and 50-minutes, so we basically lost a day to make this journey.
this train from Zagreb was the second official use of our inter-railing tickets, which allowed us to travel on any 7-days within a 1-month period. For more info on the different inter-railing tickets, see the official website here.
from Budapest Déli, we walked about 1-minute through to the subway part of the station, Déli Pályaudvar, and took the M2 red line metro going in the direction of Örs vezér tere to Deák Ferenc tér station. At Deák Ferenc tér station, we switched to the M2 yellow metro line heading in the direction of Mexikói út and got out at Oktogon station. At the time of our visit, our tickets cost 320Ft each, which was around €1.10.
from Oktogon station, we walked 2-minutes to our hostel, below. *Full disclosure: the walk should have been 2-minutes, but we got lost and stressed and eventually found the door after walking up and down the street for over 15-minutes. Joy.
where we stayed
Leanback Hostel // nothing of note comes back to me about this hostel — other than the fact that it was very poorly signposted and we stayed in a 10-bed dorm. I did think it was well located on the Pest side of the city, so there’s that! Address: Budapest, Andrássy út 53, 1062
*2025 UPDATE: now permanently closed.
where we ate
Sadly, I didn’t actually note the name of anywhere we ate in Budapest — but I wanted to share these food photos regardless. Sorry: my blog, my rules!
where we touristed
free attractions
Heroes’ Square + Millennium Monument // originally built to celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of Hungary, this square featured statues of the chieftains of the seven different tribes who founded the country. Pretty neat! Would recommend. Address: Budapest, Hősök tere, 1146
City Park + Vajdahunyad Castle // a beautiful spot for a wander. We didn’t actually go into the castle, choosing instead the cheap option of just admiring it from the outside, but it was still cool to see. If you were so inclined, this park is also home to the famous Széchenyi Baths, which is something I regret not doing while we were there! Would recommend. Address: Budapest, Kós Károly stny., 1146
Walk of the Century, Budapest Edition // listen, I spent ages researching these free walking routes before our trip — catch the London version here / Zagreb version here — so you better believe we did an epic self-guided sightseeing tour in Budapest, too. This walk starts and ends at Deák Ferenc tér metro station, and basically goes in a huge 9.9-kilometer circle around the city’s main attractions. Here’s what we saw:
Dohány Street Synagogue // aka: the Great Synagogue. We didn’t actually go inside because my knees were showing, but we did take photos from the outside. Fun fact: this is the largest synagogue in Europe, with enough seating for 3,000 people!
Erzsébet Bridge
beginning the climb up gellért hill // the liberty statue // the view over pest Gellért Hill // my guidebook warned of a “taxing climb” up to the top of this hill — but the climb that transpired was far worse than that, especially on a hot summer’s day. It took us 20-minutes to make it to the top, but the views were worth it. At the top we also saw:
Citadella // similar to the fortress we saw on Hvar in looks, function, and the fact that it was too expensive to actually go into.
Liberty Statue // aka: a really tall statue of an archangel offering a palm branch to someone, which commemorates those who sacrificed their lives for the independence of Hungary.
Castle Hill // if luck is shining down on you, there is a funicular that ferries people up to the very top of this hill. If, however, you are unlucky like we were, you’ll just have to make the slog up the old fashioned way. At the top of the hill we saw:
view from castle hill // changing of the guard at buda castle // the hungarian national gallery 
fisherman's bastion Hungarian National Gallery // from the outside only, because we were too cheap to go in.
Buda Castle // aka: the Royal Palace. Our visit here luckily coincided with the changing of the guard, so that was cool to see.
The Church of Our Lady of Buda Castle // this was being restored when we were there, so we couldn’t enter, but it was still cool to see.
Fisherman’s Bastion // we didn’t actually pay to go in, but we did wander the grounds and wow — this is so beautiful! The view over the city from here was also amazing.
Széchenyi Chain Bridge // the prettiest bridge in the city.
hungarian parliament building // st. stephen's basilica Hungarian Parliament Building // together with Fisherman’s Bastion, probably the most recognizable landmark of Budapest. Again, we didn’t actually go in, but admiring the iconic building from the outside was more than a little impressive!
St. Stephen’s Basilica // my aforementioned showy knees prevented us from entering, but the outside of the building alone had us gawping — it is so beautiful and so! huge! Fun fact: this is the largest church in Budapest!
paid attractions
Memento Park // I had studied this park in college and was absolutely determined to see it with my own two eyes; it’s a huge open-air museum outside the city centre where they’ve rounded up all of the statues, plaques, and memorial’s from the city’s communist past. I’m pleased to report, it was just as cool as it sounds! Seeing all the statues out of context was so fascinating, and the whole park was just so wonderfully designed — the art history nerd in me really enjoyed it. Would recommend. Address: Budapest, Balatoni út - Szabadkai utca sarok, 1222
The House of Terror // a museum that deals with the city’s previous Nazi and Soviet occupations. I remember thinking the exhibitions were really interesting, but also, understandably, very heavy. We spent about 2-hours wandering around before calling it quits for the sake of our sanity. Address: Budapest, Andrássy út 60, 1062
And there we have it: Three Days in Budapest, Hungary! I hope you enjoyed this latest post in my Notes from the Archive series! I’ll be back soon with the next stop from my inter-railing trip: Bratislava!
Until then,
Vicki xo
*Date of trip: 20th - 23rd May, 2012*
related posts
My 2012 Inter-Railing Itinerary | Notes from the Archive
48 Hours in Zagreb, Croatia | Notes from the Archive
An Afternoon in Bratislava | Notes from the Archive
