Before studying abroad, everyone raves about how cheap flights within Europe are. However, after booking our first 8ish trips, I still hadn’t found the elusive €20 flight. But when we [me, Kira, Clara & Shannon] found a Ryan Air flight out of Pisa to Budapest that was €40 roundtrip, we knew we had to get it! After finding an Airbnb only 3 days before leaving (which is a habit we have unfortunately formed) I was so excited for the trip.

We left on Thursday night at 9 PM, so we began our journey at 6 pm, giving ourselves time to walk to the train, train to Pisa, and take the tram to the airport from there. We had a super easy flight – and noticed there were LOTS of other study abroad students like us who had also decided to see what Budapest had to offer. Landing only an hour and a half later, we met Arthur, the driver connected with us through our gracious Airbnb host. We got in and immediately went to bed.

Friday morning, we woke up to a sunny, bluebird day. We tried to get the famous Budapest pancakes, but we were all starving and there was a 20 minute wait to get seated, so we ended up at Solinfo Cafe, where we fueled up with eggs benedict, pumpkin spice lattes, and pancakes. From there, we wandered around the Budapest market for an hour looking at all of the goulash, peppers, and gorgeous woven garments. Then, we walked across the liberty bridge and strolled along the river to the Buda Castle. The view from the back side was amazing, and we could even see a hot air balloon in the background! We then went over to the Fisherman’s Bastion and Matthias church. I loved all of the stone arches and little nooks in the Bastion where you could sit, feeling the sun on your face and people watch. And the roof of the church absolutely blew me out of the water – all of the different colored tiles placed in the most intricate patterns made up the most gorgeous roof I have ever seen.

From here, we walked back to our Airbnb, stopping on the Chain Bridge to recreate a video of Will Smith doing the “Kiki” (also Kira’s nickname) from 2018 (and Kira had an odd request from a bachelor party, check our abroad Instagram @kiraandcaroinflorence for details lol). Then we arrived at Cookie Beacon, a cafe dedicated to cookies, which was insane – if you take one thing away from this post, GO TO COOKIE BEACON ON YOUR NEXT BUDAPEST VISIT!!! After nearly dying (ok, I am being dramatic here) from delicious and gooey cookies, we took a quick nap before dinner. For dinner, we got ramen at the Oriental Soup House and walked back to the river where were boarded our nighttime river cruise! The views on this were gorgeous and we got to see the Instagram-famous parliament building all lit up while hearing about the storied past of Budapest.

Following our cruise, we headed to Simple Kert, which is a ruin bar. Ruin bars are pretty much what they sound like – bars in the ruins of old buildings left abandoned post WWII or post-Communist area that have become lively nightlife hubs. I got Soproni Cherry Ale which was amazing.

Ok, I know that was a bit of a word vomit, but part of the amazing price of our flights was that we would only be in Budapest for just Friday and Saturday morning. So Saturday, we decided to relax after running around Friday and went to the
Széchenyi thermal baths. We took the metro there and racked up another tram fee of 12,000 HUFs (even though we had tickets!) but the baths were well worth the journey. We spent the remainder of the day hopping between all of the baths and saunas at Széchenyi, where our favorites were the whirlpool in the adventure bath and the salt inhalation chamber (after we got over the initial coughing). Before we knew it, Arthur picked us up and whisked us away back to the Budapest airport.

This trip was one of my favorites so far and it felt so different from any city I have visited so far! Next up on the docket: Paris this weekend!

Arrivederci,

Caroline