Now you can do Budapest in a long weekend

A view of Budapest

Budapest is the Europe you've been looking for.

It's a city steeped in a wonderfully convoluted past—Romans and Magyars, Mongols and Turks, Austrian emperors and Soviet puppets—yet one that looks to the future, with elegantly odd new buildings going up to replace some of the cement-block scars from the Soviet era.

These mingle with a gorgeous mélange (yes, I said it: a gorgeous mélange) of decorous 19th century Empire structures and decorative Secessionist ones, all jostling for space on busy boulevards.

Budapest is laid along both banks of the Danube: the palatial fortress of Buda rising high above the river to one side, the commercial center of Pest splayed along the flat bank opposite. It is a city of hearty food, forthright and genuine people, fine wines, and those elegant thermal baths. 

Those famous Budapest baths

The Rudas Baths in Budapest

Budapest's famous bathhouses range from broodingly 16th century Turkish (the Rudas Baths; www.budapestgyogyfurdoi.hu), to grand Art Nouveau (the famed Géllert Baths; www.gellertbath.com), to button-down modern (the Danubius Grand on Margarit Island; www.danubiushotels.com) with menus of treatments ranging from spa massages and mus baths to nose jobs, cosmetic dentistry, and laser eye surgery.

And, yes, you can do it all in a long weekend. (And, despite all news to the contrary, there is not currently a toxic river of sludge moving down the Danube.)


Getting to Budapest
How do you do Budapest in a weekend? Well, it helps if you live in the greater New York City area, because as of this year Delta Air Lines (www.delta.com)—and staring next year, American Airlines (www.aa.com)—offers nonstop seasonal flights (in about 9.5 hours) from JFK to the rapidly expanding Budapest airport.

Off-season, you can still go, of course, but you will transfer somewhere like Paris or London and the journey will take up to 12 hours.

The elegant New York Cafe at the
Boscolo Palace Hotel (www.boscolohotels.com)

How much Budapest costs
It won't exactly be cheap to fly there—coach class starts around $1,000 roundtrip (though I highly recommend their Business First service, if you have the scratch—I don't, which is why I was only too happy to let Delta pick up the tab for me; speaking of which: yes, it's perfectly natural to hate travel writers).

However, once you are there, everything in Budapest is pretty inexpensive.

It'll cost $6 for a bottle of really good wine, or $1.50 to $4 for a beer even at the trendiest of "Ruin pubs" (semi-legal squatter bars, like the classic Szimpla kert [www.szimpla.hu], in the courtyards of abandoned buildings; www.ruinpubs.com).

A goulash cooking lesson at one of
the upstairs restaurants in the central market

A massive bowl of goulasch will run you $5 to $6, while the priciest main course on a menu may break $10 or $11 (and that's not even for the famed Hungarian fried goose liver on brioche).  

At online booking sites like Venere.com and Booking.com, Hotels in the center start around $26 for two people—though around $40 per night is more typical (international chain properties like Ramada or Best Western start at $60 to $90). Simple guesthouses sell double rooms starting as low as $17.

You can bargain in the central market for handicrafts—and they stall owners are refreshingly devoid of shill or tout-ism. They just sit there quietly waiting for a potential customer to ask them a question, rather than constantly exhorting passersby to come peruse their wares. I love it. (Also the prices, where embroidered linens start at $2 to $4 for smaller pieces, and sampler packs of super-fresh paprika half what they would at home.)