May 1, 2026 Budapest HU

Ton really wanted me to see Budapest. She visited about 20 years ago and it made a big impression on her, and when we talked about this trip she always referred to it as the Budapest trip. So I was looking forward to see the city that made such a big impression on her.

We have been in Europe for their labor day (May 1 in Europe) and have had it influence our trips. On our very first trip we were in Paris on labor day and were going to head to the center when the desk clerk warned us we should stay in Montmartre for the day because- as he put it they would be having the annual May Day riot in the center. We spent part of our day watching live coverage of the riot on TV. As we walked around Montmartre you would have never known there was a riot going on 20 minutes away. In Poland we learned that the whole country shut down for not only labor day but the whole week as they had scheduled 2 other national holidays in the first week of May. We ended up in Kraków for 6 days as the campground owner there allowed us to stay out of pity, every campground in the country was fully booked for that week. So we were wondering what we were in for today.

The streets were quiet and the tram was pretty empty so we were optimistic when we arrived downtown. We decided to head to the Basilica as that is where we usually start our city visits. For the first 5 minutes we were on side roads and Ton said that the crowds weren’t too bad. 30 seconds later we turned onto the avenue that St. Stephens faces and we found the crowds. In addition to the normal load of tourists, there were a lot of labor day tourists from the surrounding countries, we heard a lot of Slavic languages being spoken in addition to the normal German and English you hear in every city. The campground is an indicator that this is a labor day destination for Hungary’s neighbors as we are surrounded by plates from Slovakia, Poland, Romania, and Slovenia instead of the normal French, Dutch, English and German RV’s

St. Stephens is a beautiful cathedral, but today it was teeming with people and tours. Ton spent a lot of time wriggling her way around groups of people to get a photo without a head in it. I spent my time on the edge of the crowds trying to enjoy the beauty while keeping an eye on Ton so I didn’t lose her.

After St. Stephens we decided to cross the Danube on the Szechny Bridge. Once again the views were beautiful but it was a challenge to enjoy them without getting swept along with the crowds. But as I looked at the city from the bridge I began to realize how all of the major buildings in the city seemed to be drawn to the river. Many great cities have a river that shapes them but Budapest is striking because so many of the important buildings in the city compete to show their best face to the Danube.

After the bridge we tackled the climb to Buda castle. About 80% of the way up the hill we saw a cafe and decided that we deserved a beer. In the cafe we shared our table with a Brazilian couple who we enjoyed speaking to.

At Buda castle Ton really wanted to visit the fisherman’s bastion as it had really made an impression on her last visit. When she visited she remembered standing on the walls of the bastion listening to a Gypsy Band playing Hungarian music. She was so impressed with the band that she bought one of their CD’s. Now you have to pay to walk on the walls of the bastion and their were not any local musicians around. But the views are still incredible.

Ton than consulted her list of places and said that she wanted to visit the area of ruined pubs. I punched it into google maps and to my surprise it provided directions to the area of ruined bars. So after a bit of a walk to a tram and a transfer to a bus we found ourselves in an ally on the edge of the old town. The ally had character and it did have a bunch of pubs though I would not call them ruined, but intentionally funky.

We had to wait 15 minutes for our pub of choice to open, but by the time it did we had been joined by another 40 or 50 people. I’m not quite sure how to describe the pub. It is consciously outlandish and unabashedly aimed at tourists, but it is so over the top that it works and is almost charming.

We found a table and Ton immediately took off to take pictures. She came back and told me that we didn’t need to rush to get a table as the place was immense. As we were drinking our beers a steady flow of tourists wandered thru our room including at one point a guided tour.

We settled into the routine and enjoyed taking in the steady flow of people including one Canadian couple festooned with Canadian flags on their clothes and backpacks. We guessed they wanted to make sure they were not mistaken for Americans.

As we were chatting the couple next to us leaned over and asked where I was from? They were American and had been trying to figure out my accent. It turns out they were missionaries who live in Austria helping to resettle refugees. They were on a weekend retreat away from their three teenagers and seemed to be having a great time.

We walked to the New York cafe which bills itself as the most beautiful coffee house in the world, to see if we could be tempted to overpay for coffee and a desert. Any thought ended when we saw the line of people waiting to get in. So we decided to head back to François for a much more affordable dinner.