budaveg – vegetarian Hungary your vegetarian home in Hungary

The city’s spas are world-famous for their health-giving properties and the summer heat makes swimming the most popular pastime, but Budapest has lots more to offer than mere water. Stay in our lovely vegetarian apartment for a comfortable holiday!

There is hot water under 2/3rds of Hungary; there are over 120 springs in Budapest alone, there are amazing spas everywhere; historic Turkish bathes, Art Nouveau Spas and modern water parks.


There is a brilliant website about the spas, in English and German, where you can learn about everything from water composition till the opening hours. Check their picture gallery too and you will want to visit them all! Below I give you my very personal opinion about the main spas and you can also open the map to see where they are in town.

You can rent swimming costumes and towels at baths but don’t expect the latest fashion. In most pools you have to wear a bathing cap in the swimming pool but not in the thermal pools. It’s possible to get massages in the baths, ask at the ticket office for price and availability.

Gellért Baths
The most well know one, the majolica tiles and mosaics, Roman-style thermal pool and general opulence produce an unrivalled atmosphere. The outdoor pool has a wave machine! Beautiful building, but the most expensive spa and very touristy.

Széchenyi Baths
Several small indoor and three outdoor pools in a glorious palatial setting in the middle of the City Park. Watch the floating chess players as you benefit from the thermal springs. With water jets and a whirlpool, it’s a favourite with families.

Rudas thermal and Turkish Baths
At the Buda side of the Elizabeth Bridge, just along from the Gellért, this bath was recently renovated. Open to men except Tuesday when open for Ladies. It is open to both sexes on Friday and Saturday night from 10 pm till 4 am and Sunday 6 am till 5 pm.


Lukács Baths
At the Buda side of Margaret Bridge a beautiful spa that boasts the highest level of IQ among the swimmers: it’s a favourite place of writers, journalist and politicians. The water is highly effective – just read the many plaques on the walls from grateful patients.

Király Baths
Built at 1565 by the Turkish pasha of Buda, this amazing bath is a true gem for history lovers and also great for relaxing, on average there are only a handful people there. Turkish bath, steam bath and sauna, all days are mixed, ie open for ladies and gents too.

Dagály Baths
This bath is the closest one to budaveg, just at Árpád Bridge. It has a big swimming pool, two beautiful thermal pools and many lido pools in the summer. Lovely place, relaxed and local people only. A must with kids in the summer!

Palatinus, Római and Csillaghegyi Baths
Three fantastic open air pools with swimming pools, lido pools and some with great water slides. Palatinus is on the Margaret Island so very close to budaveg. Almost like a seaside holiday, great family fun! Check this site for details or ask me.

From our guestbook:

We had an absolutely brilliant time in Budapest… it has been both our favourite holiday yet!

Zsofi, thank you so much for your invaluable help in getting us acquainted with the city… you have been an excellent hostess to us. I would definitely recommend the 3 hour guided tour with Zsofi at the beginning of your stay. It proved to be a really useful way to learn your way around the city and Zsofi is a very knowledgeable and experienced guide.

Visitors to Budapest should definitely try out one of the gorgeous spas. We went to Szechenyi Baths near City Park and didn’t want to leave!


The apartment is fabulous, much nicer than it appears on the webpage, and so spacious and nicely decorated. We both feel so, so “at-home” here in Budapest! It helps if you get Zsofi to mark out the locations of the veggie restaurants on a map for you (it makes then much easier to find) Also, make sure you try out the new “Sunny Tastes” restaurant on Rozsa utca (Ask Zsofi!)

They serve gorgeous pizzas and nice traditional Hungarian Style dishes, and it’s completely vegan!!!

All in all we have had a fantastically memorable and enjoyable time.

I sincerely hope that Budaveg proves as successful as it deserves to be… it is a wonderful idea!!

See you again…

Jess and Ian xxx

We had a nice but too short time in Budapest. The apartment was lovely and cosy (and good exercise as we only used the stairs!!!)

The metro very easy to use; even walking around was not too bad.

Thanks to Zsofi and James, we’d love to come back sometime!

Brigitte and Chris Ireland

Ps: Try the Lukács Spa in the early morning on a weekday – it’s a small but great place and a refreshing way to start the day (40 minute walk – not bad).

Wonderful apartment, wonderful city. Was like having a home away from home!

We ate very well here, there is much for veggies. Our tip: go to the spas, they are fantastic and the 7 day travelcard is great value for money.

Thanks for everything Zsofi!

Sarah + Andy UK

We have really enjoyed our 9 days here. Budaveg is not just a self-catering apartment but is a vegetarian resource and we have benefited from Zsofi’s helpful information on veggie restaurants, cafes etc. All of you reading this will no doubt appreciate how great it is to go out and have real choice and not have to settle for bland veggie options when you never know what’s in it or how it’s prepared. We tried most of the veggie restaurants on the list and mostly we recommend Vegetarium (as it has air-con, you can drink beer there and the food is good), Napfényes Izek (which has more atmosphere + the staff are friendly, the food is good, lots and all vegan – very nice was strawberry soup) and falafel café (if you like to eat salad + falafels – this place is really fab – about 20 salads, very informal).

We got most of our fruit and veg at the local market which is cheap, fresh + open everyday. Turn right at main door, at 1st junction turn right onto Victor Hugo, walk to end of street, go under underpass passing metro entrance and up and arrive in market (in the tacky eighties building you can’t miss)

Sights: Margaret Island- very relaxing cycling and swimming in “Palatinus” (would be good for kids if you have some)
House of terror – yes controversial but very effective and memorable


Statue Park – great raw material but they haven’t really decided what to do with it – but still worth a visit (take a hat if sunny as not much shade – no need for direct bus – rip-off!) Easy to get tram (we had travel card) and bus (500F return)

Museum of Applied Arts – nice building and lovely folk art exhibit now till 27 July ’05 – upstairs in card exhibit is some stuff for kids (v. small). As with all museums (except Fine Art Museum) good to get photo licence (normally about 400F) as postcard selections are inadequate.

Museum of Ethnography – free but hot! – interesting Hungarian folk costumes, tools and installations

Széchenyi Baths, near zoo – fab building + hot spas (one over 30oC) – worth going for experience + atmosphere though Margaret Island baths are much more spacious.

We also enjoyed coffee in the ‘Gerbaud’ (Vörösmarty Tér) making 2 coffees last forever (it’s quite expensive) whilst sketching everyone else soaking up the atmosphere amongst velvet curtains + chandeliers – we read the service was slow but this was not true. It was full of tourists so no need to be posh to go there – they served us!

Another highlight was the ‘Pushkin’ cinema – opposite the Astoria – studenty picture house showing some English films with Hungarian subtitles.

Time to sign off now – hope you have great time here at Budaveg – thank you to Zsofi.

Isla and Seth from Bristol UK

 


Dear Zsofi, Lovely flat, good facilities, central location. Thermal baths at City Park were so relaxing, first time we’ve ever visited a ‘spa’, not many in England. Had a tasty lunch at Falafel, and also went to the ‘Sunny Tastes’ and Wabisabi. A trip to Szentendre by boat was very pleasant.

Thanks

John and Sandra, East Midlands UK

Open the budaveg google map to see the location of the apartment, spas, vegetarian restaurants and the sights, you can book the budaveg apartment here and remember to book a guided tour for your holiday! If you have any questions get in touch with us via email or facebook, or ask us a question via formspring, we are always happy to meet and greet the travelling vegetarians!

Which is your favourite bath in Budapest?