Budapest, Hungary
When I found out Budapest was only a few hours away from us I begged Joe to take me. Also he argues it’s BudaPEST yet I have learned from my girl Scarlett Johansson that it’s actually pronounced BudaPESHT. After visiting Joe has realized I am the smarter spouse and it is indeed BudaPESHT. HAH. My guys, your woman is always right. Always.
Upon arriving in the heart of Budapest and driving next to the Danube River, you’ll see the Parliament building and just wow, I’m speechless. I could lay my eyes on that building every single day and never grow tired. Around 6pm they light up the building and it’s like seeing it again for the very first time (‘: I’m sure you can tell I love that building.
We stayed at the Hilton in Royal Castle District and I wouldn’t recommend staying anywhere else. This is just a nice area to stay in because the area is RICH with history. Very walkable. The Hilton is located right next to the Matthias Church, not only will you hear the beautiful bells that sound every hour, you’ll see this amazing architecture. Right behind this gorgeous church is the Fisherman Bastion and walking up on this amazing structure gives you an amazing view of the Danube River, Budapest, and the Parliament building. Such a dream.
Joe, the kids, and I spent our day here walking around Royal Castle District listening to Vince Bur on VoiceMap. VoiceMap is an app you can download and it uses your location for a self guided tour. Joe and I both really love using this app while we are in Europe cause traveling with kids just makes it harder for us to follow an actual tour guide around. Also… we are both self paced people so pretty sure even if we didn’t have kids we would be using the self guided tours. Another plus is that since you use your headphone to listen to the tour there’s no way that you can’t hear the guide. I’m the person who needs subtitles on every tv show I watch, I know I’m not alone on this. Anyways Vince did a great job at guiding us around and filling us with knowledge on the ancient ruins we came across. 5 stars.
Let me take a few of your moments to tell you that staying at the Hilton is the cherry on top of your stay in Budapest. Here’s why: the room we got upgraded to (after I accidentally told them we had two kids with us… usually we just tell the hotels that it’s 2 adults cause our kids are infants and don’t take up much room. Well shame on me because I guess that’s ILLEGAL. Whoopsie.) was a suite and it was not only huge and luxurious… YOU COULD SEE THE PARLIAMENT BUILDING FROM THE WINDOW! It was gorgeous and amazing and every positive word you can think of. Okay now onto the 2nd reason Hilton is the obvious choice. Two words. Pre-Dinner. Hilton Budapest has a Pre Dinner Lounge that includes pre dinner snacks and drinks. We’re talking charcuterie board meats and cheeses, little dishes of chicken nuggets, sliced steak, champagne, tea, hot chocolate, and more… so much more. Now, you guessed it. Who needs dinner when they are offering FREE snacks and FREE drinks!! Like? Make that make sense. Joe and I filled up on our fine meats and cheeses and so did our kids and we left full and happy. So this Hilton checked off all of our travel needs, in the heart of history, continental breakfast, pre dinner (aka free dinner), amazing views.
5 stars.
