This website is about the real Budapest, and gives very interesting background details about the history, culture and architecture of this beautiful capital which is slowly losing some of its unique features (old presszo bars, neon signs, dingy borozos) as it changes into a modern European metropolis. Written by a Hungarian speaker, the articles featured go behind the facade and into much more detail than a guide book could manage.
It has a wealth of information for people who really love Budapest and want to know the city better.
Check out the recent story on the Trabants - really interesting!

disappearingbudapest.blogspot.com

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This little Hungarian oddity comes highly recommended, so too does having someone with you to cling on to if you choose to take the tour alone, as opposed to with a guided group.

The 1,200 metre labyrinth of caves and tunnels open to the public was once the haunt of prehistoric man, and more recently served as an air raid shelter during the Second World War. What is on offer to visitors today is a nerve-testing series of delights, with the highlights including gargoyles projectile vomiting blood and a section called the 'Labyrinth of Courage' - a terrifying, pitch-black, 'hold on to a rope and edge forward a centimetre at a time' sort of experience.

Bear in mind that to a person of a nervous disposition the labyrinth might be considered a less than pleasurable excursion, but personally I found it to be one of the most original and exciting hours that I spent in Budapest.

Budapest Castle District,
Úri utca 9.
URL: www.labirintus.com
Telephone: +361/212 0207
Nearest station: Moszkva tér on the M2 line.

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Wonderful building - there's a free half hour tour for EU passport holders.

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A museum looking at communism in Hungary and the effects of the terror caused by the Arrow Cross Party (Hungarian Nazis). It's located in a beautiful street, made to look like an American boulevard but inside this lovely neo-renaissance building lies many secrets. It was once home to the Arrow Cross Party HQ and within its labyrinth of corridors are cells, where the captured were tortured. A very sad museum but most interesting. You need to get the headset to fully appreciate all that's gone on within the walls of this eerie building (available in English and German).

Andrassy Ut, near Vorrosmarty

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I strongly recommend a visit to this quite extraordinary museum, a truly emotive and incredibly moving experience with a very strong sense of its painful past still echoing through the rooms. The struggle of occupation under the Nazis and then later the Soviets all contained within the microcosm of one building that once served as a headquarters to the notorious Hungarian Arrowcross party.

60 Andrássy út; www.terrorhaza.hu/index3.html

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Worth buying if you plan to use only public transport to get around, intend to visit several museums/sites a day and eat at tourist restaurants.

On the downside, quite a few of the museums are free to enter anyway; lots of the sites we had planned to visit were closed over the winter even though they were still listed in the Budapest Guide brochure as being open; none of the restaurants we fancied were part of the Budapest Card scheme and those listed generally weren't for us.

On our five-day break in January we found that we just about broke even on the cost of purchasing the card. The main benefit we found was the convenience of hopping on and off buses, trams and trains without having to get our tickets punched each time.

Having the card also encouraged us to travel further afield and do more things (to get our money's worth) than we might have done otherwise. For those who like more freedom to choose where they go and what they visit it could be worth exploring the ordinary travel cards as an alternative.

Can be purchased from Tourist Information outlets and most hotels. You can buy it at a discount in advance on the internet and have it delivered to your hotel. www.budapestinfo.hu/en/budapest_card
For regular travel cards: www.bkv.hu/angol/jegyek/index.html

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For under a tenner you can spend an afternoon sampling hundreds of fantastic wines in the underground cellars of this brilliant attraction.

Not at all pompous, so you don't have to be a boffin to enjoy it. The atmosphere is relaxed and the staff are lovely - if a bottle's empty just shout up and they'll open another.

Szentháromság tér 6; tel: 1 212 10 31; www.magyarborokhaza.hu

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Hungarian photography museum. It was an old photography studio - the building and the view of Nagymező Street are just as fascinating as the exhibitions.

Nagymező Utca 20; tel: 1 473 2666; www.maimano.hu

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The Museum of Ethnography is opposite the parliament building on Kossuth Ter (Square) and has a large news photograph exhibition which is very interesting.

Kossuth Lajos tér 12; www.neprajz.hu/english/index2.html

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