Budapest Travel Diary – II (Buda)

If Pest is a crazy party place then Buda has its own charm with its share of amazing architecture, awesome viewpoints to witness the beauty of the city from a height and few great spots to spend a quiet evening.

Understand the Geography

The geography defines the reason behind the name Budapest. Two lands separated by Danube river where one area is called Pest while the other is called Buda.

BUDA

Similar to Pest, we segregated the places to be visited into two different buckets of day and night. This worked really well to make the best use of our time.

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DAY BUCKET

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Buda Castle

If art and museum is your thing, you can definitely go inside the Buda Castle and visit National Museum. Apart from this, it offers few great hangout places, amazing photo spots and panoramic view of the city.

Matthias Church

Unlike St. Stephens Basilica in Pest, you need to purchase an entry ticket for this. The ticket price is not very cheap but it was definitely worth it for me, because they allow using a tripod inside the church. Timings are usually 9AM – 5 PM in summer.

Fisherman Bastion

Bastion is a terrace with a renowned architecture at the edge of Buda and offers a great sunset view. There are no specific timings as it remains open in the night but you need to buy a ticket for this as well. Now the catch is that nobody checks the ticket for Fisherman Bastion once Mathias church closed. Rest you can calculate 😛

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Photo Tip: There are endless photo spots in this area which can easily take a couple of hours to explore. 

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This area is pretty huge but you can’t access the complete terrace as more than half of it is converted into a restaurant which must be very expensive due to its amazing location. However, you can enjoy a coffee at Starbucks :).

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NIGHT BUCKET

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Night reveals another Budapest

You haven’t seen all if you visit Buda only in the daytime as night gradually unfolds another version of Budapest with illuminated Bridges and monuments.

Revisit the Castle in the night

You can’t miss the aura of the Buda Castle in the night. First, there is almost no crowd in the night and second, the illuminated lights took the beauty of the castle to another level.

City trails

While climbing down from Buda hill, please stop by at one of the bridges over the Funicular tracks. You will get a nice shot of city traffic trails.

Trek along the Buda hill

If you are someone who is really interested in night photography with city trails and starbursts or in general like to witness the night view of the city from a height, there is a trek along the Buda hill from Chain bridge to Liberty bridge which offers some amazing non-famous viewpoints of the city. Check out our detailed post for this trek.