Month: October 2008

Depeche Mode in Budapest, 23 June 2009

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Depeche Mode in BudapestDepeche Mode will hold a concert in Budapest 23 June 2009 at the Puskas Ferenc Stadium. Tickets are available at WorldTicketShop.

About Depece Mode
Depeche Mode are an English electronic music band formed in 1980, in Basildon, Essex. The group’s original line-up was Dave Gahan (lead vocals), Martin Gore (keyboards, guitar, vocals, chief songwriter after 1981), Andrew Fletcher (keyboards) and Vince Clarke (keyboards, chief songwriter 1980–81). Vince Clarke left the band after the release of their 1981 debut album, and was replaced by Alan Wilder (lead keyboards) who was a band member from 1982 to 1995. Following Wilder’s departure, Gahan, Gore, and Fletcher have continued as a trio. Depeche Mode are one of the longest-lived, most successful and influential bands to have emerged from the New Romantic and New Wave era. They have had forty-five songs in the UK Singles Chart, as well as one US and two UK number one albums. According to EMI, Depeche Mode have sold over 75 million albums worldwide, as part of total worldwide record sales in excess of 100 million.
Source: Wikipedia

Concerts and events in Budapest

Budapest Spring Festival 2009

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Budapest has a lot of festivals, and every year they arrange a spring festival. In 2009 the spring festival will be arranged between 20 March and 5 April. Among the artists you can find:

Ágnes Szakály, Amadinda Percussion Group, Anderszewski Piotr, Arkadi Volodos, Bartók Quartet, Budapest Festival Orchestra, Budapest Tomkins Vocal Ensemble, Camerata Salzburg,
Ensemble Martinù, Harding Daniel, János Dobra, Kálmán Záborszky, Kodály Quartet, Kremerata Baltica, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Maisenberg Oleg, Mika Teranagane, Milan Turkovic,
Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra, Say Fazil, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Sir Andrew Davis and Zugló Philharmonia.

For a full list of the programs and venues, go to www.btf.hu/btf2009/

If you are looking for an apartment or would like a guided tour as you come to Budapest for the festival, feel free to contact us for advices and help!

Other programs and concerts in Budapest

Christmas market in Budapest – 2008

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Christmas Market BudapestCHRISTMAS MARKET BUDAPEST 2009 INFORMATION HERE

In forums all around the world and in travel magazines people now speak of the christmas markets around the world, and around in Europe. I just visited a page where they wrote about the ten best christmas fairs in Europe, and Budapest was not included. Included or not, Budapest has a great christmas market at the Vörösmarty Square (endstation of the yellow underground line), and here you can buy presents, food and have a really good time!

This year it is the tenth anniversary for the christmas market, and more than 150 programs accompany the christmas market. Around 600 000 visitors are expected to visit the market between 21 November and 29 December.

More Christmas Market pictures can be found here and here.

Other events and programs in Budapest

Eating at Mátyás Pince

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Earlier this week we had the chance to visit Mátyás Pince to taste their food, and to listen to some gipsy music while we were eating. Our goal and what we wanted to discover, was whether this was a restaurant to recommend to tourists or not. And after eating there we have for sure found out.

Hungarian Goulash SoupOur starter was a Hungarian Goulash soup, and we must say; it for sure tasted like Goulash soup… Some people told us that they serve the Goulash soup with beans several places (and they normally do not like that), but here they did not, and we were able to really enjoy the soup.

After the soup we ordered two different main courses; Breast of Pullet Grilled with Fresh Spices of Garden, with Mixed Salad in Roquefort Dressing and Paprika Chicken Stew Szeged Style with Home Made Butter Dumplings. The first is not really Hungarian, but my wife wanted that, so no need to argue! I ate the Paprica Chicken and I was really satisfied with the taste of it.

In places like this they often have annoying gipsy music playing in the background, and sometimes the musicians put their violins almost into your ears, but we had no problem with the musicians or the volume here.

As a dessert we ate “rétes” with ice-cream; a nice ending of a “hungarian” evening!

Conclusion
We really got a taste of Hungary, and if you are looking for a place to eat Hungarian food this might be one that will meet your needs. The prices are high compared with many other places, so it will probably not be a place where we will come back all the time; but for the sake of tasting Hungary it was satisfying our needs!

Restaurants in Budapest

Pink concert in Budapest, 24 March 2009

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Pink will have a concert in Budapest 24 March 2009. The concert will be held in the Papp Laszlo Budapest Sportarena, and tickets can be ordered from Eventim.

Press Release
Brit and Grammy Award winning, multi-platinum singer P!nk today announced plans for a new tour in 2009. The tour will kick off in Belgium on 26th February finishing in the UK in early May. Just last week P!nk scored her second UK No.1 with her new single ‘So What’, taken from ‘Funhouse’, the new album. The single remains at No.1 this week as well as being No. 1 in Germany, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and the USA.

Pink had a message for her fans “I’m so excited to get back on the road. The ‘Funhouse’ tour ideas are running rampant in my head. Who knows what they’ll come out as…. And I can’t wait to see”. P!nk’s previous tour sold out arenas across the UK and Europe and established her as a major headline artist. The ‘I’m Not Dead Tour’ included 56 arena shows and a further 43 Festival dates!

The announcement of these dates coincides with the release of Pink’s fifth album ‘Funhouse’ released on October 27th, the follow-up to 2006’s ‘I’m Not Dead’, which went four times platinum in the UK, selling 1.2 million copies. Since her debut in 2000, P!nk has been widely hailed as a fearlessly talented singer/songwriter, and the Pennsylvania native’s genre-defying creative risk-taking has propelled her to global stardom. To date, P!nk has sold 22 million albums cumulatively worldwide.

Concerts and other events in Budapest

The forint is gaining strength

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Last week we wrote about how the financial crisis is impacting the forint. The bottom point was when 1 Euro was equal to 285-286 forints. This week the forint has again been gaining strength, and this morning at 9:30 (you can see the clock) my Windows Vista desktop told me that 1 Euro is equal to 255,5 forints. For the Hungarians these are good news, and hopefully the forint will grow further in strength. For tourists it is not that good, as you need to use more money to buy the products in Hungary!

To read more about the currency, changing of money in Budapest and so on, check out our updated currency page.

Chain Bridge on the new 200 forint coin

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LáncHíd, Originally uploaded by marcustg

The Hungarian National Bank arranged a competition not long ago where people could vote for what symbol they would like to see on the new 200 Forint coin. They received more than 200 000 votes, and more than half of them voted for the Chain Bridge in Budapest.

The new coin will earliest be used in the first quarter of 2009, while it is expected that people can use the 200 Forint paperversion (that we use now) until the end of 2009.

It is not the picture above that will be on the coin, but we can wait and see how it looks when it becomes available in 2009. If you want to read more about the oldest bridge in Budapest, we recommend you to click on the link above. There you can read more about the bridges history and events since it was first used in 1849.

Flowers and II Rakoczi Ferenc

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Rakoczi Ferenc II, Originally uploaded by GuideToBudapest

A while ago we wrote about how beautiful Budapest can be with flowers all around the city the entire year. Last week we realized it again as we walked next to the Parliament. On the square in front of the Parliament we could see beautiful flowers in several colors in front of the II Rakoczi Ferenc Statue. II Rakoczi Ferenc is known as one fighting for liberation in Hungary in the start of the 18th century. At that time Hungary was opressed by the Habsburgs, and led by II Rakoczi Ferenc they fought for several years for their freedom. In the end Ferenc had to flee from Hungary, and later he died in Turkey.

Hundreds of years later Budapest received back the bones of II Rakoczi Ferenc, and the street on the Pestside of the Elisabeth Bridge is also named after him!

Budapest pictures

23 October tomorrow – National Day

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Not long ago we wrote an article about the history and the background for the 23 October, a national day in Hungary. Tomorrow the day will be here, and already from this evening several roads will be closed, and tomorrow there will be several roads closed for traffic and programs going on at several spots. So if you are planning to go to Budapest tomorrow, use your legs or public transport 🙂

In 2006 and 2007 there has been some trouble in the streets of Budapest the 23 October, but the police is prepared this year, and hopefully there will be no violence to be seen in the streets.

23 October – The Hungarian Revolution