Socio-cultural walking tour in Budapest

The tour shows a contrast of Budapest: fascinating down-town palace neighborhood and the true
lovely, poorer streets of our capital. With visiting the home of a gypsy family.

Feel the contrast, be a Budapest citizen for a walk.
Feel the contrast between the luxury palace district and the time-worn backstreets of the slummy district. We go into hidden backyards. We visit the home of a musician gipsy family.

More information and prices: Socio Cultural Walking Tour in Budapest

Christmas Fair in Budapest

Each year from the end of November to 24 December the traditional Christmas fair is organized in one of the finest central area of Budapest, in Vörösmarty Square. It is one of the finest event held out of the tourist season in Europe.

There is number of musical and cultural events during the fair. In the shop window of the Gerbeaud Café a special Advent Calendar can be seen with the works of 24 contemporary artists every day. You can buy only natural materials, handcrafted gifts, the quality and origin are checked buy a jury.

The Budapest Christmas market is a favorite of not only locals but also visitors, because very few tourists  miss out the Vörösmarty square. The freshly baked cakes, mulled wine, fried dough and the delicious smell of homemad dishes call the visitors eating or looking around from a long distance.

People interested in culture can find performances of classical music, Hungarian folk music and dance, children concerts in the northern part of the square.

In 2011 the christmas fair is open from 18th November to 30th December.

We have a Christmas Market Walking Tour from 24 November to 30 December on every Wednesday to Sunday. You can hear about the christmas traditions in Hungary, visit two christmas market places in Budapest, and you can taste wine and mull wine. The tour takes 2,5 hours. The price is 18 EUR/person. More information and booking: Chrismtas Market Tour Budapest

Budapest Shopping Centers - Malls of Budapest

The biggest shopping centers of Budapest:

1. WestEnd City Center

1062 Budapest, Váci út 1-3, Hungary

Phone : +36-1-238-7777

www.westend.hu

WestEnd City Center awaits its customers with over 400 shops located on 3 levels.

- 200 fashion shops with a selection of major brands;

- almost 70 shoe and leatherwear shops

- 50 watch and jewellery shops; gift shops

- 45 commercial points

- 40 restaurants and cafés

- a 14 screen cinema

- game arcades and casinos

- a 2,500m2 open air ice rink during the winter; flourishing roof gardens with playgrounds during the summer.

2. Mammut Shopping and Entertainment Centre

1024 Budapest Lövőház Street 2-6.

info: +36 1 345-8020, +36 1 345-8333

www.mammut.hu

Date of opening: 28 August 1998 (Mammut II: 28 September 2001)

Area: total area of 105 thousand square metres, including car parks, public areas, storage areas and offices. The total business area alone is 56 thousand square metres.

Number of stores: 330

Number of parking spaces: 1,200

Disabled access: Mammut I and Mammut II at the Lövőház Street entrance and the main entrance of Mammut II.

3.Arena Plaza

1087 Budapest, Kerepesi út 9

www.arenaplaza.hu

Arena Plaza has almost 200 stores,  including  many world famous  brands  such as  Peek & Cloppenburg, Zara, H&M, Bershka, Stradivarius, Pull & Bear, Oysho or Gant - some of whom opened their first shops in the Arena Plaza.  And there are almost  30 restaurants  and cafés in the centre, including Pizza Hut, McDonald’s, Burger King as well as Häagen Dazs and  Tchibo, who’ve opened their  very first Hungarian shop in Arena Plaza.

Here you’ll also find a Tesco hypermarket. And  Cinema City have opened  Central-East-Europe’s biggest multiplex cinema in the centre -  the only  IMAX cinema in Hungary.

Arena Plaza’s shops and restaurants are open from  10h  to 21h from Monday to Saturday and  from 10h to 19h on Sundays.

4. Corvin Plaza

1082 Budapest, Futó utca 37-45

www.corvinbevasarlokozpont.hu

The newest shopping center of Budapest with 100 shops.

5.Europeum

Blaha Lujza tér, Budapest

Opened: 14 April 2011

The brand new smaller shopping center in 3 floors (5300 m2) in the very city center on the Blaha Lujza Square.

6.Árkád Budapest

1106 Budapest, Örs Vezér square

www.arkadbudapest.hu

On three floors, the Mall caters to its discriminating customers by offering a close to 170 mix of specialty retailers and services.

The Center also offers restaurants, quick-lunch bars and coffee shops.

7.MOM Park Shopping Center

1123 Budapest  Alkotás u. 53.

www.mompark.hu

MOM Park is in the Buda side with 97 shops and a 9 rooms Palace Cinemas Cinema.

8.Duna Plaza

1138 Budapest, Váci út 178.

www.dunaplaza.hu

It is one of the oldest shopping centers of Budapest with 200 shops, restaurants and a Palace Cinemas Cinema

9.Allee Shopping Center

Október Huszonharmadika utca 8-10.  H-1117 Budapest

www.allee.hu

Allee has 47 000 square meters GLA including retail and entertainment functions, altogether 137 shops and service points, and additionally 7 000 square meter offices and a three-level parking house located underneath the centre with 1200 parking places.

10. Köki Terminál
Vak Bottyán u. 75. H-1191
www.kokiterminal.hu

The newest shopping mall in Budapest has opened on 14th October 2011. It has a very good location, at the end station of the Metro line nr. 3, Kőbánya-Kispest. Here is a train station and a bus station as well. This is the end stop of the airport bus, bus nr. 200. In 58.000 square meter, it has more than 200 shops and restaurant.

The István Zelnik Southeast Asian Gold Museum

A few weeks ago The István Zelnik Southeast Asian Gold Museum has opened its gates on the Andrassy Boulvard, in the city center.

The István Zelnik Southeast Asian Gold Museum provides a home for nearly a thousand artifacts from eleven of the states of  today’s Southeast Asia. Most of these objects are of gold and date from prehistoric times to the 20th century. The museum’s material is founded on the unique collection of Dr. István Zelnik, a former diplomat, now a businessman and art collector.

The Gold Museum presents the realms of culture and art in this colourful and multifaceted region. The museum halls lead the visitor across the eras of Southeast Asian art and its exceptional wealth.
The mainstays of the collection are the gold and silver artefacts from Cham, Khmer, Javanese and tribal cultures. . The collection of  religious objects, statues connected to Buddhism and Hinduism is also outs standing.

Representations connected to Buddhism can be found in all sections of the collection. Standing, sitting or walking Buddhas and the ‘thousand Buddha’ representations on the Buddha Wall are very important in the collection, but many articles of religious practice can also be seen, for example, a stupa-shaped reliquary, votive plates and ritual vessels.

Hindu deities - Indian influences have affected the region’s art significantly since the 5th century. In the Hindu religion Shiva plays a central role, which the collection reflects perfectly.

 

The multicoloured character of the civilisations in the area have been enriched by Southeast Asia’s own trade network, which existed alongside the Central Asian Silk Road, that is, the ‘Maritime Silk Route’, and it was similarly important. Trade on these routes is shown in a separate exhibition hall, where the many distinctive goods it distributed can be seen, including gemstones, silk, porcelain and precious metal objects that changed hands within the trade network.

The upstairs halls of the museum house groups of objects that offer a view of the Cham, Khmer and Javanese court cultures, as well as the refined art of smithying in the tribal cultures of the mainland and the archipelago, mainly through gold objects. There is also a separate hall here dedicated to the Shiva cult within Hinduism because of the particular importance it gained in Southeast Asia. The influence of Islam from around the 12th – 13th centuries can also be felt in various groups of objects.

In the Cham collection more of the so-called kosha—which were used to decorate or ‘dress’ linga (phallic symbols) in the cult of the god Shiva—can be seen, and in better condition, than in any other collection in the world. Cham statue jewellery: medals, rings, armlets, diadems and crowns also appear in matchless diversity. The collection of Cham silver statues is another uniquely rich source of iconographic plastic art, some of them have never been seen intact and in their full glory before. The inscribed Cham ritual vessels represent similar historic value and rarity. Secular jewellery forms a separate category in the museum that sometimes overlaps with that of statue jewellery.

The group of small sheets for ritual purposes, inscribed and decorated with figures or other representations, forms a subgroup within the Khmer collection. The Khmer jewellery compilation includes some outstandingly valuable and unique rarities, as does the group of small, everyday ritual objects such as small boxes, pots and storage vessels.

The collection of materials from tribal cultures presents some rarities never seen before, from human-shaped ritual objects likely to have been part of death or ancestral cults, through to the Bronze Age gold drum from the Dong Son Culture and death cult masks, and on to the series of medals (plates) from Taninbar. The tribal jewellery of the Indonesian Archipelago is both spectacular and unusual.

In addition to tribal artworks, court art in the Southeast Asian Archipelago is also richly represented  in this collection.

Each and every one of the artefacts placed in the Hall of Treasures is a spiritual treasure in the deepest sense, whilst also guiding the visitor to an interpretation of the meaning of secular treasures.

A Tropical Statue Garden and an Asian Teahouse also await guests at the Gold Museum located on the museum axis of Andrássy Avenue (in the former Rauch Villa).

More information: Zelnik István Museum

Budapest, Andrássy út 100.

Open all year. Opening Hours:  Monday: 9am -6pm, Tuesday to Sunday: 9am -7 pm

How to get to Budapest city from the airport

If you landing at Budapest Airport (Liszt Ferenc Airport) terminal 2 (all regular flights, no discount flights):

1. Take bus number 200E as far as the end station: Kobanya-Kispest (Kőbánya-Kispest) metro station. There is a big construction here in 2011, everything is a little bit crazy here for us – local people – as well. Just follow the people. Take the metro line 3. If your destination requires you can change the metro lines at Deak Ferenc square: you can take line 2 and line 1 here. The main city center is at the Ferenciek square, Deak Ferenc square, Nyugati square – Nyugati railway station stops. You can buy tickets at the airport. You need at least two tickets. You can buy a ten- or twenty-ticket-package for a discount price.

2. Take the private shuttle bus line from the airport terminals to the city center directly. Orange bus with the board Budapest City. Departure in every 30 minutes from 5 am to 12 pm. Ticket price: 1400 HUF (5 EUR)/single journey. You can buy ticket on the bus. There is a lot of stops on the way. You can download the schedule from here: Airport Shuttle Bus

3. Sharing airport shuttle minibus service: minibuses for sharing direct transfer. You can find more information here: Airport Shuttle Minibus

4. Private taxi transfer: Prices from 22 EUR/car. More information and booking here:  Airport taxi transfer
5. By taxi: you can take a taxi from the airport to the hotel. Please, ask the price before taking this service for avoiding the heavy moments. There is only one taxi company in the airport with rights to waiting for clients at the taxi station of the terminals.

If you landing at Budapest Airport (Liszt Ferenc Airport) terminal 1 (discount flights and private planes only):

The same ways as above and:

By train: You can buy ticket at the aiport. Leave the building and you can see the pedestrian bridge on the other side of the parking. Through the bridge and down at the middle stairs you can reach the trains. Take the trains to Nyugati  Pu.station. There is a train to Nyugati station in every 10-15 minutes. Some trains go to Köbánya-Kispest, but you need the trains to Nyugati station. Watch the information boards. Avoid the trains to Debrecen, Szeged and other destinaitons, they come from Budapest and not go to the countryside. The only one good train line is with the Nyugati Pu. final station.