Széchenyi Thermal Baths
Soak in steaming outdoor pools in a neo-baroque palace — go early morning or for the weekend night 'sparty'.
Thermal baths, a floodlit parliament and ruin bars in old courtyards.
When to go: April–June & September–October — pleasant and walkable; baths are blissful year-round.
Best places to visit
Outdoors
Hungarian Parliament
The riverside neo-Gothic icon; book the interior tour, then see it floodlit from the Buda bank at night.
Fisherman's Bastion & Castle Hill
Fairy-tale turrets framing the best view of Pest across the Danube — free if you skip the upper terrace.
Ruin bars (Szimpla Kert)
Derelict courtyards filled with mismatched furniture and string lights — the District VII institution.
Central Market Hall
Paprika, salami and lángos under a Zsolnay-tiled roof — eat the fried-dough lángos upstairs.
Margaret Island
A car-free park midstream in the Danube — musical fountain, rentable bikes, joggers and picnickers.
Plan your trip to Budapest
WTFly finds the cheapest dates to fly there across a whole flexible window — then activities and a car to round out the trip.