In short
Budapest was born in 1873 from the merger of three towns, and the main distinction remains clear: Buda, on the west bank, is hilly, residential and carries the castle; Pest, on the east bank, is flat, dense and holds the urban life. The Danube separates them.
The Jewish quarter, in Pest's seventh district, is the one of bars and synagogues. The Castle district and Gellért dominate Buda.
Arriving and getting around
The airport is linked to the centre by bus; a direct line reaches the metro.
Metro line M1, opened in 1896, is the oldest underground line on the European continent and is World Heritage listed. It is in ordinary service: you take it like any other line.
The BKK network combines metro, trams, buses and boats. Tram 2, along the Danube on the Pest side, gives the best view of the city for the price of a ticket.
Hungary uses the forint, not the euro: prices displayed in euros in tourist areas are unfavourable.
What it really costs
Budapest is one of the cheapest capitals in Europe, food and accommodation included.
Beware the exchange offices in the centre and cash machines offering conversion into your own currency: declining the conversion and letting your bank convert is systematically better value.
When to come
April–June and September–October. Summer is hot and heavy, winter cold but it is the best season for the baths.
What nobody tells you
Budapest is built on more than a hundred thermal springs. The baths are not an attraction but a daily habit: Széchenyi, vast and yellow, in the middle of a park; Gellért, Art Nouveau; Rudas, Ottoman from the sixteenth century with its pierced dome. Opening hours and mixed days vary from one establishment to another: check first.
The romkocsma, ruin bars, occupy abandoned buildings in the Jewish quarter, furnished with salvage. Szimpla Kert is the first and best known; the concept was born here in the early 2000s.
Gellért Hill is climbed on foot in half an hour and gives the overall view of the Danube and its bridges, free — where the Fisherman's Bastion charges for its upper terrace.
The memorial of shoes on the Danube bank commemorates the Jews murdered on the embankment in 1944–1945. It is not signposted as an attraction.