Rudas Ivócsarnok (“Drinking Hall”) is a place where you can drink very healthy thermal water that comes out of the ground hot.

Located near Rudas, one of Budapest’s thermal baths, the hall is a small, single-room construction where you can often see old ladies and gentlemen waiting for their turn with empty bottles in hand. Inside, you pay at the register to the right, then take your slip of paper to a stand where hot and smelly water is bubbling out of three taps. These are coming directly from three subterranean hot springs, and you can either get a half-liter mug for 30 Forints, or fill your own empty bottle for similar, ridiculously low prices.

Now, all three types of spring water are warm, and the one with high sulfur content also smells like eggs, so it’s not something you probably want to drink to cool yourself down on a blistering summer day. Instead, it’s what you drink if you’re health-conscious and wish to prevent any one of a good dozen ailments from rheumatism to high blood pressure.

The Hall is a bit hard to find. First you should get to the Buda side of Erzsébet bridge (the closest tram stop is Döbrentei tér, or you could walk across from Pest), then look for the entrance on the edge of a wide, circular open-air area, surrounded on several sides by the elevated motorway that leads up onto the bridge.

Budapest is chock-full of gyros and falafel stands and many operate all night to service the roving bands of pub crawlers. Yet, I’m going to recommend Szinbád, which is an atypical example for closing late afternoon. “But Kalman, you dark horse, you,” – some of you readers might exclaim – “you got us all excited about the idea of nighttime cuisine! Why recommend a daytime-only place, then?”

Well, simply put, the food is just so much better than elsewhere. You see, the food in many of these gyros places just tastes samey. Not bad, just rather indistinguishable from the food in all the other gyros places. That’s because (at least so I hear) all these places buy their stuff from the same central distributor, from the meat on the spit to the spices and sauces.

And that’s where Szinbád is different. The Syrian owner and his sons make all the food themselves on the spot, from original raw ingredients (except the baklava, but even that’s from some special source); therefore, their stuff has its own distinguishable – and very good – taste. So much so, in fact, that there people coming here from the far end of the city, passing half a dozen other takeaways of a similar profile on the way.

Personal tip: try the grape leaves filled with rice and ground meat. Just be aware that it’s rather messy for finger food, so you might want to take it away and eat in in the vicinity of a bathroom.

Rozsadom (Rose hill) is famous for its beautiful and expensive villas, it is also notorious for hosting Gül Baba’s mausoleum- a very particular place.

This up-the-hill amazing Danube viewpoint was one of the very first sights I got to see when I came to Budapest. It has remained my favourite spot ever since! And not only for the great view it provides. Its unique Oriental feeling deeply appeals to me. The Turkish spas excepted, Gül Baba türbeje is the only place in the city where you can really feel the genuine Oriental touch of the Magyar capital (Budapest was under Ottoman rule from 1541 till 1686).

So Gül Baba was an Ottoman-Turkish esteemed dervich (you can even read his biography on wikipedia!). He is said to have introduced rose culture to Hungary but who checked if that was true? It was enough to give the whole district the name of ‘Rozsadom’!

I recommend to climb Mecset utca once you get off at Margit hid (Tram 4, 6) after a few flights of stairs, you can access the mausoleum garden. You’ll find Gül Baba’s grave inside this octagonal stone shrine – which you can visit (you just have to ask the guy over there, he will open it up for you). The grave itself is nothing tremendously exciting but the garden is: so go there in time as it closes at night! There was once a café open right by the mausoleum but it’s closed right now.

Litea, just next to the Castle-district canteen, is an oasis of freshness in the baking Budapest sun. It’s alternatively a very warm spot when the hot weather is long gone. In a word it’s perfect in all seasons and rightly so as it is open all year-long.

So what is Litea about? Books and coffee! Mostly about books though! It’s typically the kind of place you end up spending hours at. Ideal spot for writing postcards (they do sell Budapest arty postcards, not the touristy-chain bridge ones…), sitting down for coffee, eating – unfortunately not home made – pastries. Feel free to read as much as you want to, here.

Besides books, CD’s are also on sale (Hungarian classical music, and some Gipsy + Hungarian Folk music). Books are available in many foreign languages (English, German, French…), and tackle all kind of cultural topics, from Hungarian Jewish heritage to Magyar traditional dishes, and of course Hungarian literature. The only downside of Litea is that it is deprived of wi-fi internet…

It’s actually hard to believe but Budapest ‘public canteens’ are still operating more than 20 years after the regime which was officially sponsoring them collapsed. Well, of course their ownership lies in private hands now.

My Budapest favorite is the castle district ‘self-service restaurant’ – as we call it here (‘önkiszolgáló étterem’). It is very centrally located on castle hill, just a few steps away from Mathias’ church. It is a bit hard to find, that’s probably how the place kept its local taste though it made it into some foreign guidebooks (I know what I’m talking about!).

The canteen is just above Fortuna passage. On Hess András tér – Fortuna utca, go into the yard at the beginning of the street (yellow building with Fortuna written on it) and right after that, climb the stairs on your the left. You will find yourself in a spacious and bright room, that’s the canteen! Everything is written in Hungarian but you can see what will get on your plate from where you order.

The daily offer for about 700 Ft (including a soup and an main course) is usually gone by 13:30, so be quick! Otherwise you’ll have to order what’s still available (a la carte, still cheap though)! Don’t forget to sort out your knife, fork, spoon, glass, plate and tray, there is a space for that purpose on the left. So nothing left to say, just enjoy your meal!

If you have no idea where to go for a concert in town, A 38 is simply your best bet in Buda (along with Milenáris in Buda and MUPA in Pest). If you believe in Lonely Planet rankings, it’s #1 in the world!

A 38 belongs to those kind of places whose current use totally drifted from their initial one. The ship which is now a restaurant-café-concert venue, was used during the Soviet times to ship bricks from Ukraine to Hungary. Its original name, Artemoszk 38, got shortened to A 38. But if you listen to Budapest people you’re more likely to hear them saying ‘let’s meet on the boat’ (hajó).

A 38 was renovated and re-launched in 2003 to become one of Budapest busiest nightspot. It hosts very different kinds of concerts (one everyday or almost, usually not on Sundays-Mondays).

A 38′s wide musical spectrum goes from the jazz to the electronic music scene, it has rock concerts quite often as well as crazy Balkan-style bands. It features world famous bands as well as lower-key ones. It’s also very casual, quite alternative and trendy at the same time.

The hall in the boat is small enough to feel very close to the musicians whoever they are. And it’s a great great feeling, believe me! The place is pretty full most of the times and there’s nowhere to seat. Note that the concerts start quite late, usually at 22:00.

3 years ago when I visited WAMP (check this article) for the first time, I immediately fell in love with bags designed by Ágnes Havrán. Ágnes who graduated in the Packaging and Typography Design at Moholy-Nagy University of Craft and Design in Budapest, was always interested in creating self-closing boxes. She started to make bags 8 years ago, using Italian leather, sometimes coloring it, every product is one-of-a-kind.

At the beginning she became successful abroad (Belgium, France, England, Austria, Poland), where her bags and purses became very popular and you can buy them in couple of shops, especially in Wien.

Once in Wien she stopped by car before a crosswalk, a girl passed in front of her wearing a Havrán bag on her shoulder, another time she visited a restaurant where the owner recognized her and started to enumerate the amount of Havrán bags she has. Ágnes told me she receives dozens of thanking and praising emails and this is her biggest award, which motivates her.

Two years ago she started to design clothes as well, which were presented and sold this year in her Wien shops. Ágnes opened her own Budapest showroom in 2011, for visiting please reserve an appointment via email: havrana@kreta.hu

I’m definitely more a Pest girl than a Buda lady, however I reckon that Buda has nice little spots and Millenáris is one of them – along with Gül Baba türbeje.

So what’s so special about that place? Well, first, it’s worth underlying the very clever use of the old Ganz factory premises, which has been turned into a cultural center and a well-designed park. The park’s main attraction is not so much the greeneries but the wide pond. It gives the Millenáris park some Japanese garden touch. There is even a bridge to go over the water and observe the enormous fishes swimming behind you.

Second, it’s a lively place day and night. During the day and the week-ends lots of famlies come here as there is also a playground, besides the kids can explore the ‘palace of miracles’ (‘csodák Palotája’) which is some kind of interactive scientific exhibition hall. The ‘Fogado’, one of these huge former industrial buildings you see at the back, has very often exhibitions.

At night, you can head to the teátrum for a cool concert, a drink on a old tram seat or a theatre performance. It is truly one of Budapest best cultural venues!

I have no idea why most of the theaters in Budapest are not prepared for foreign public. Luckily the Béla Pintér and Company, one of the most important stops on the theatre circuit, plays some of its best productions with English subtitles.

I highly recommend this independent decisive theatre company with its startling performances, which by the way have been recognized with numerous critical awards and achieved popularity with the theatre-going public.

It is the artists’ intention to create contemporary productions based on critical-ironic observations of society and themselves. The surreal world which generally characterizes their productions is constructed from a combination of reality and dream, of authentic and kitsch, and from sundry elements of Hungarian culture. Thanks to their success, the company is nowadays regarded as one of the most significant and most inventive creative workshops.

Recommended pieces: Peasant Opera, Dievouchka, The Queen of the Cookies, Muck, Brilliant Second-Rate

You can check their program here.

Details about this spot (Show on map)
Béla Pintér and Company | Art & culture, Theaters | Ticket HUF 2500
Műegyetem rkp. 3 | Central Buda | +36303383987
Varies check program

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