August 2012 - Page 2 of 2 - Budapest Guide

Sziget Festival 2012 live on YouTube

Posted on August 9, 2012November 27, 2013 by Budapest Guide

Sziget Festival 2012 has been going on for some days, but yesterday was the official opening with artists such as Placebo and others performing. A new thing this year is that the festival is broadcasted on YouTube, so there you can follow the events on the Main Stage, A38 Stage and the Otp Bank World Stage live… This is an amazing chance to enjoy the festival live on the net, especially for those who would like to be there, but could not be there for some reason.

Don’t you know what Sziget Festival is? It is one of the best festivals in Europe, and each summer about 400 artists come to perform at this event in front of several hundred thousand people dancing, singing along and enjoying the wonderful atmosphere on this great festival in Budapest.

Tonight, August 9th, you can for example see the follow artists live:
Tankcsapda, Citizens, Korn, Maxima Park, Caro Emerald and quite some more.

On August 10th, you can see the following artists live:
Viza, The Black Seeds, Wild Beasts, La Selva Sur, Compact Disco, La Brass Banda, Bebel Gilberto, Roy Paci, Shantel and quite some more…

On August 11th you can see the following artists live:
Jungle by Night, Imam Baldi, Sergent Garcia, Two Door Cinema Club, Carbonfools, Sum 41, Molotov, Fink, Katzenjammer and some more….

On August 12th you can see the following artists live:
The Subways, Freshfabrik, Figli Di Madre Ignata, Paolo Nutini, Rotfront, Leningrad, The Ting Tings, Yonderboi and some more.

The webaddress where you can see it all live:
http://www.youtube.com/szigetofficial

Still, there is a problem, and that is that this broadcast is supposed to be limited for people in Hungary, so for people surfing the net outside Hungary, this is supposed to be closed, and you will not be able to see it (you should still try though). If you try, and it does not work, the problem is that you do not have a Hungarian IP address and we have written some articles earlier about how you can fix that problem, and enjoy broadcasts limited to Hungary online from all around the world. If you are interested, check out the following two articles:

– How to watch Hungarian TV from abroad?
– How to get a Hungarian IP address?

We wish you good luck and hope you will enjoy the live broadcast from Sziget Festival in Budapest and Hajógyári Sziget just as much as we do!

Is Budapest an expensive city?

Posted on August 9, 2012 by Budapest Guide

How much money should I expect to bring with me if I am travelling to Budapest from the UK for 4 days on a holiday? Is it expensive?

First of all thank you for your question. Considering the fact that you will arrive from the UK Budapest will seem quite a lot cheaper than what you are used to, but not at all super cheap. One of the big differences is the hotel prices, as you in Budapest can get a room in a five star hotel for around 100 Euro per night, much, much cheaper than in large UK cities such as London, Dublin (ops… not in UK, but in Ireland) and so on. If you go for a hotel with three or four stars you can get even prices around 50-70 Euro per night.

For a service such as an airport transfer you should plan to spend around 25-30 Euro for a normal taxi from the airport to the city center. Taxi in the central parts of Budapest is also cheap, just make sure to order the taxi from your hotel or restaurant, not just jump into one in the city.

Restaurants in Budapest are fairly cheap, and you can find daily menus in quite a lot of Budapest restaurants costing around 1200 HUF (about 4 Euro). A menu in McDonalds cost 1300 HUF (4,5 Euro) and the same prices are valid for Burger King. If you plan on eating in nicer Budapest restaurants you should estimate spending 20-30 Euro per person, that price including 1-2 courses and some drinks. You will of course find cheaper places as well, and also more expensive, but that is a quite average price for a kind of nicer restaurant.

When you visit museums in Budapest several of them have a permanent exhibition free to citizens in the European Union, but if you want to visit the temporary exhibitions you need to pay for that. These entrance fees normally vary between 1000-3000 HUF.

The public transportation in Budapest is also fairly cheap and if you plan on using it quite a lot you should buy a one week pass costing 4600 (Hetijegy is the name in Hungarian). For those planning to shop a lot Budapest has quite international prices, so shopping in Zara or H&M in Budapest costs just as much as it would cost to buy clothes in the same stores in the UK. If you want to buy quality wine that is though cheaper here, at least if you buy the local wine produced in Hungary. A fine bottle of Hungarian wine can cost 10-15 Euro in a winestore.

All in all Budapest is a fairly cheap European capital, but you can spend a lot of money if you would like to. It is hard to answer and tell you exactly how much money is worth bringing, but hopefully this answer will help you calculate yourself how much you would like to bring!

Comments? Agree or disagree? Write it in the comment field!

Ask your Budapest question!

Are there any performances in the Hungarian State Opera during summer?

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Budapest Guide

I will travel to Budapest in August this summer and wonder if there are any performances taking place in the Hungarian State Opera in that period?

Thank you for your question. During the summer months the Hungarian State Opera is only available as a tourist attraction and unfortunately not as a cultural place. This means that there are guided tours in the building daily at 15.00 and 16.00, but there are no events taking place in July and August. The first performances normally start by the end of September, so also in 2012 when the first event will be happening on September 24th (a classical concert) and then continuing with the opera Hunyadi Laszlo from September 28th.

Sorry about that, but do not forget that BUdapest has lots of other cool activities and programs to offer visitors, so we hope you will not be bored even though the Opera is standing still in this period.

Ask your Budapest question!

Is everything closed during Christmas in Budapest?

Posted on August 6, 2012September 8, 2023 by Budapest Guide

We are wondering about the opening hours for museums, different attractions, shopping, and restaurants, etc. Is everything closed during Christmas?

Thank you for the question. We have our page dealing with Christmas in Budapest where you can find a fairly good answer to your question. We also try to keep that page up to date with information about open restaurants and so on. The page about Christmas Markets in Budapest can also be interesting in dealing with the subject.

In general, the answer to your question is as follows! All shops are open until 12.00, 13.00, or 14.00 on December 24th, but then they close and reopen on December 27th, meaning there are few shopping opportunities on these days.

If you would like to go to the cinema instead they normally have a break on December 24th, but from December 25th or 26th you can find the cinemas open again and you can enjoy the good films coming for Christmas. Budapest has quite a lot of attractions 100% free, such as Gellert Hill, Heroes Square, and so on. Most museums have opening times similar to the shops, though some of them might close from December 23rd and not open at all on December 24th. The museums, when they are open, are normally open from 9.00 or 10.00 in the morning until 18.00 in the evening, though this also vary from museum to museum.

If you want to grab some food around Christmas in Budapest, you better check out opening times before. In our page about Christmas in Budapest you will find information on some restaurants open on December 24th, 25th and 26th. Except for those dates most restaurants are open all the time, but in general, other restaurants stay closed on those three days. Some restaurants are only closed on December 24th, but then stay open from December 25th. Since there is no general rule it is important to find out what’s up with the restaurant you are interested in. If you want to do a booking of a table for a restaurant on December 24th, you better hurry up, because restaurants get packed up and fully booked very quick for that day, as most restaurants are closed, and therefore everyone try to get a free table in those restaurants who decide to stay open.

The Szechenyi Furdo, the most popular thermal bath in Budapest and Hungary, is open every day throughout Christmas, but it closes earlier on December 24th.

How to get a Hungarian IP address?

Posted on August 3, 2012December 22, 2023 by Budapest Guide

I live outside Hungary, but I would need a Hungarian IP address for different projects and stuff I do. Can you give me some advice?

My first piece of advice would be to move to Hungary! It is a beautiful nation and the most beautiful city in the world is here Budapest! But, we can of course see why people have to live outside Hungary as well – and that is of course positive, because if everyone lived in Hungary, then no tourists would come to Budapest and live in all the hotels.

Back to your question. If you want a Hungarian IP address several services are offering this. One of those is NordVPN which we use ourselves when abroad, and it works very fine. We once had a similar question concerning how to watch Hungarian TV from abroad (when the broadcast is supposed to only be available for those inside Hungary). To do this you also need a Hungarian IP address, so the information given in that answer should help you as well. Read the full article here: How to watch Hungarian TV from abroad online?

Ask your Budapest question!

How to watch Hungarian TV from abroad?

Posted on August 2, 2012December 22, 2023 by Budapest Guide

I live outside Hungary and would like to see the Olympic broadcasts from Hungary, but I am not allowed to see, or the broadcast simply does not work. What can I do? The same thing was a problem during the European Championship in soccer earlier this year.

This is a general problem and often the broadcasts are closed down for people living outside Hungary. When nothing special is going on the normal live broadcasts on the net do work, but for special happenings such as the Summer Olympics, world championships, and European championships it does not work anymore. The solution is thus to somehow arrange with something that will make the webpage of the Hungarian television to believe that you watch from inside Hungary, meaning that you need a Hungarian IP address. A good solution for this is NordVPN. It costs a bit of money, but if you get a subscription you can watch as much as you’d like, not only in Hungary but also TV shows and events locked in other parts of the world. Just make sure to get a valid IP address in the selected country. It works easily and fine, and we have tried it ourselves.

If you want to try some free options, you should of course try M1 and M2 live feeds, or for larger events, you might be lucky if you vision Eurovisionsports.

Links connected to this text:

Here you can also see a clip taken from abroad watching Hungarian television (M1 – MTV) during the Summer Olympics in 2012.

If you have other comments or feedback on any of this, feel free to write a comment on your own to come with further advices, experiences and help on the matter of watching the Hungarian TV channels from abroad. We know that it general everything is open and free to watch, but as mentioned earlier, during larger sports events and so on a lock is often put on the broadcasts making them unavailable to people watching from outside the Hungarian borders.

Ask your Budapest question!