Year: 2012

New flights from Budapest to Tel Aviv and Kiev

New flights from Budapest to Tel Aviv and Kiev

Posted on by Budapest Guide

Wizz Air is expanding their network and from December 2012 they will fly to two new destinations from Budapest, Kiev and Tel Aviv. Wizz Air has for a long time had Kiev in their network, but it is very interesting and really cool that the capital of Ukraine will be available with Wizz Air flights, much better than the slow trains lasting 12-13 hours.

Flights from Budapest to Tel Aviv
Flights from Budapest to Tel Aviv and Kiev

Even more interesting is the fact that Wizz Air will start flying between Budapest and Tel Aviv. For a long time this has been a very expensive route to travel as El Al Israel Airlines has been the only company traveling this distance. Now with Wizz Air entering into this market the travelers will hopefully be the winners, and it will turn much easier for Israelis to visit Budapest and Hungary and for Hungarians to visit the Holy Land of Israel.

Both destinations are supposed to be available from December on, so why not take a pre-Christmas trip to Israel to visit Bethlehem or maybe just to walk around and celebrate Christmas in summer temperatures (almost)?

The flights time from Budapest Airport to airport in Tel Aviv is about 3 hours.

The Age of Pieter Bruegel – Museum of Fine Arts

Posted on by Budapest Guide

The Age of Pieter Brugel is the name of an exhibition in the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest which has been on display since June 15th. It will close up on September 16th, so if you would like to check out the exhibition, you better hurry up to get tickets and check it out. The goal of the exhibition is to display paintings by Pieter Brugel from the 16th century.

The Age of Pieter Bruegel
Museum of Fine Arts
June 15th – September 16th

Official press release (source: Museum of Fine Arts)
At a time of stormy historical events in the sixteenth-century the Netherlands underwent vast changes in its intellectual life and the arts. This century saw a deepening of the divide between medieval and modern cultures with Italian Humanism and Renaissance playing a major role in the formation of the new, humanistic system of values.

Up to now the Museum of Fine Arts has not stage an exhibition solely devoted to sixteenth-century Netherlandish drawings, since only a smaller part of these works was displayed in 1932 and 1967 in shows spanning two or more centuries. In the past decades European museums also failed to mount exhibitions providing a comprehensive picture of the great changes that took place in Netherlandish drawing between 1500 and 1600.

The Budapest collection of drawings – similarly to other collections – does not have extensive enough material to present the art of all the prominent Netherlandish masters; therefore, for the sake of completeness, we will borrow some important sheets by Jan Gossaert, Pieter Brueghel, Roelandt Savery, Bartholomeus Spranger, Lodewijk Toeput and Frederick Sustris from the Albertina in Vienna. However, our collection is famous for some specialists, which significantly increases its importance. Among these, the rich and diverse landscape depictions deserve primary mention, since the museum is able to boast of complete series by Pieter Stevens, Paulus van Vianen, Frederick van Valckenborch, “the master of the Budapest sketchbook” and Anton Mirou. We also own landscape drawings of outstanding quality by Hans Bol, Jacques Savery, Jan Brueghel and Abraham Bloemart. We owe the invitation extended to our museum by the Louvre in 2008 to exhibit our sixteenth-century drawings mainly to our collection of landscape drawings which contains treasured rarities. Then only 80 of our drawings were showcased, while the upcoming exhibition will include another 40 sheets. The added works as well as the explanations and inspirational prefigurations for each drawing will illustrate the process of change with convincing power.

The exhibition to run from June will showcase rare figural sheets by masters from whom only a few drawings are known worldwide. Among such special works are the “Trionfi” (triumphal procession) series by Michiel Coxcie, a study sheet by Cornelis Engebrechtsz from a sketchbook, Frans Floris’ early, allegorical and mythological drawings and Egidius Sadeler’s red chalk study of the Roman Palatine Hill. The thematic and technical diversity of the drawings are rendered palpable by the outstanding figural works by the most important masters: Bernaert van Orley, Maarten van Heemskerck, Denys Calvaert, Pieter Candid, Frederick Sustris, Karel van Mander, Hendrick Goltzius and Jacques de Gheyn.

My flight arrives after 11:00 PM. Is there a Euro/Forints exchange kiosk open that late at Budapest airport?

Posted on by Budapest Guide

At Budapest Airport Terminal 2A and 2B you will find an InterChange office, a place where you can change most available currencies to and from Hungarian Forints. In Terminal 2A this change office has the following opening times: 06.00 – 24.00 (sometimes until 02.00) and at Terminal 2B the exchange office is open from 09.00 -24.00. This means that if you arrive at 23.00 and get your luggage quite fast, you will be outside ready to exchange money before 24.00. We must though admit that it is not recommended to change money like this at the airport, and you will do far better using an ATM or changing money someplace else in the center of Budapest, with far better exchange rates than at the airport. So good luck, and hope you will enjoy your stay at Budapest Airport and of course in Budapest

Ask your Budapest question!

May I pay for your airport transfer service in Euros or must I convert to Forints?

Posted on by Budapest Guide

Thank you for the question! It is possible to pay our drivers in Euro, but normally recommend arranging with the payment in the local currency, the Hungarian Forint. The reason is that on the fly our drivers will always say a higher Euro fee than the actual HUF fee, making it better to pay with Forint. Since you anyway need HUF to pay in shops and restaurants elsewhere in Budapest, you should just as well arrange with getting the local currency at once, thus being able to pay our drivers as well with Hungarian Forint.

If you still want to pay with Euro, ask the drier for the current rate.

Related questions:

Tons of Lufthansa flights cancelled today

Tons of Lufthansa flights cancelled today

Posted on by Budapest Guide

Lufthansa Strike BudapestWe wrote about the Lufthansa strike earlier this week, and it caused some cancellations of flights on both Wednesday and Thursday. But, until today it has only been a soft strike, but today they are hitting it heavily and tons of Lufthansa flights are cancelled today. This means that travellers flying with Lufthansa today should be very careful to look for information on their flights, because it will most likely be cancelled. So also for travelers flying between Budapest and any of the German airports today, as flights between Budapest and Frankfurt, Munich and Dusseldorf are mostly cancelled today. You can find updated information on the matter at the following Lufthansa page.

Cancelled Lufthansa flights from Budapest Airport today

This list is from 7.35 this morning. Check updated information from the link above to stay updated on your flight and more cancellations.

LH1343 Frankfurt 06:10 2A Cancelled
LH1685 Munich 06:50 2A Cancelled
LH3063 Dusseldorf 09:15 2A Cancelled
LH1335 Frankfurt 09:35 2A Cancelled
LH1677 Munich 13:05 2A Cancelled
LH1339 Frankfurt 15:00 2A Cancelled
LH1681 Munich 17:05 2A Cancelled
LH3069 Dusseldorf 19:55 2A Cancelled

What do do during a strike in Budapest?

Fortunately it is only one company striking at the moment. During the volcano cloud all air traffic was stopped, and it was very hard to get back. Now you can choose other airlines flying to other airports in Germany and you can of course find buses if it is very urgent to get back home. Hopefully everything will get back on track from Saturday morning again, though flights will probably be packed with people not reaching their destination today. Still, Lufthansa is a serious company normally very good at taking care of their customers, so we guess they will fix this problem as well within hours/days.

If you have extra time at Budapest Airport, but not able to check in, we would rather go back to the city, because the airport is extremely boring if you are not able to check in and get into the SkyCourt.

Still, if you are stuck in Budapest… go swim in the Széchenyi Fürdő, come visit us for a wine dinner and enjoy your extra hours in Budapest with some great Goulash and have fun!

Where are the best places to change Euros to Florints in Budapest. Or, can I just use Euros?

Posted on by Budapest Guide

Thank you for the question and we hope you will find our answer satisfying. There are several articles dealing with this matter on the web, and in our own Budapest Guide you can also read about this in the following article. The first question is where it is best to change Euro to Forint (not Florint) in Budapest. Probably the best way to change money is by using an ATM. Thus you get the best exchange rate, which is the actual rate, and the only fee added is the fee of withdrawing money from your account using your card abroad. There are lots of ATMs in Budapest, so that should not be so hard to find. If you still need to change money, what to do then?

There are quite a lot of exchange offices around downtown Budapest, and our advice would be to check out 3 such offices before changing money for the first time. Compare the exchange rates, and pick the one that is best. There are some offices known in Budapest to be very good places to change money, and one of these are located just opposite the New York hotel (on the other side of the Grand boulevard), near Blaha Lujza square in Budapest. That would be our recommendation. A good sign of quality and great exchange rates is that if you change Euro to Forint the sale and buy price has very little difference. For example you can buy Euro for 286 Forint and sell Euro for 283 Forint. If you see such small difference, that is a good sign. In the very city center you will probably not find such good rates, but if the difference is 4-6 Forint between buy and sell, that is still quite good.

Can I pay with Euro in Budapest?

Yes, in many situations you can, but let us say that one Euro is currently worth 285 Forint. When you walk into a shop to pay with Euro they have normally a set Euro value, meaning that you get somewhere between 250-275 Forint per Euro, far less than what it is actually worth. It doesn’t mean to so much if you are only eating a meal in McDonalds, but if you use Euro in a lot of places you will in fact lose a good amount of money in the end. Therefore it is much better to grab hold of some local Forints instead of running around paying with Euro everywhere.

Hope this answer will help you. You can find more info about the Hungarian currency in this article as well.

Ask your Budapest question!

Lufthansa strike affecting Budapest

Posted on by Budapest Guide

There has been quite some words about the strike of the Independent Flight Attendants Organization (UFO) lately, causing cancellations among Lufthansa flights from and to Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich. Currently there are no flights connected to Budapest suffering from the strike, but there are reported to be new cancellations coming up on September 7th, due to a new 24 hour strike from the flight attendants.

There are quite a lot of flights leaving from Budapest to Frankfurt and Munich daily from Budapest Airport, so if you need to visit those cities, especially on this upcoming Friday, make sure you check your flight schedule and with your local Lufthansa office before driving of to the airport.

For updated information you can also check arrivals and departures at www.bud.hu or you can visit the article by Lufthansa dealing with the same matter. Find it here.

If you want more information about Budapest Airport, check out this brand new article from the Budapest blog about Budapest Airport.

Hungarian contemporary design - Magma Gallery

Hungarian contemporary design – Magma Gallery

Posted on by Budapest Guide

Magma Gallery offers a whole palette of Hungarian contemporary creativity, covering the world of interior design. The gallery is to be found in the heart of Budapest on a huge surface area over two floors.

Magma Gallery
Magma Gallery in Budapest

In Magma Gallery you can find high quality Hungarian design works:
· glass
· ceramic
· textile
· jewellery
· design object
· graphic
· painting
· interior decoration

Contact information

1052 Budapest, Petőfi Sándor utca 11.
Phone: +36-1-235-0277
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: http://www.magma.hu/

Opening times
Monday – Friday: 10:00 – 19:00
Saturday: 10:00 – 15:00

September Fest Budapest 2012

Posted on by Budapest Guide

The festival celebrates the coming autumn and it is organized in on of the largest poplar park sin Budapest: Népliget. The duration is three days: from the 7th of September to the 9th of September. Ideal festival for all generations, programs for everyone.

During the day, you can try different Hungarian traditional competition, for example: Stew Making Competition. Those who would not like to participate on it, can taste the brilliant Hungarian traditional foods at the stew show, or can visit goulash-making competition, where people prepare the most popular Hungarian soup: Goulash. However,there are a lot more choices for everyone, begins with fish to desserts like pancake.

At the center of the park, huge stage will be standing performing the greatest Hungarian music in different styles: pop, rock and jazz. Every year has a star guest, this year Billy Cobham and Morgan Workshop, the American jazz drummer are going to play at Saturday’s concerts night.

The festival offers programs with a plenty of choice for children as well. Little ones will love tale games, playhouse, handcrafts, funfair, stroking the animals and pony-riding. For those parents who have little children the nappy-changing tent makes easier their day.

Budapest is waiting for those who would like to spend their weekend outside, knowing better Hungarian traditions and welcoming autumn.

September Fest

7th-9th September
Budapest, Népliget

Report from International Wine festival 2012

Posted on by Budapest Guide

Yesterday I visited the International Wine festival of Budapest at the Castle hill and I had a great time together with my friend with whom I went there. Unfortunately it rained for the first time in several months (with the exception of a 10 minute rain about a week ago), but that did not destroy our mood or appetite for food and wine.

We walked to the Castle area on foot from Clark Adam square and got to the entrance where we bought our entrance ticket for one day costing 2700 HUF. Included in the price is a wine glass, a holder to the wine glass and on a rainy day a big rain coat to keep the water away. I did not expect the last so it was a great surprise as I was handed a big „rain coat”; thanks a lot!

Some weeks ago I visited the Buda Castle Beer Festival and they had a system where you filled money on an electronic card, and with that you could pay everywhere inside the area. At the wine festival they also have a moneyless system, but still a bit different. You can buy paper tickets with a value of 100 or 1000 HUF at several places in the area, and you need to pay with these at the several stands inside the area. Works very fine and quite a lot quicker than the system at the beer festival. Still, with lots of paper tickets in your pockets, wallet and elsewhere on a rainy day, it can feel a bit messy, but that is probably because I did not really have a system on where I kept the tickets.

At the festival there are more than 200 stands you can visit and more than 5000 wine types you can taste. The guest of honor is Croatia, so if you want to get to know more about Croatian wine and gastronomy, you can find both food and wine from the country at this years festival. We did not find this to interesting, so we went to the Lion courtyard and started exploring the festival from there. My friend ate some traditional Hungarian festival food and had a rose wine from Szekszárd to the food. He later bought a bottle of bubble water and added some water to the rose, and thus he made the traditional Hungarian easy drink named Fröccs.

After our stay in the Lion courtyard we walked to the Hunyadi courtyard where we started our walk along the stands presenting Villány, often known as the best area in Hungary for producing red wines. The most famous wine makers were represented here, for example Gere, Bock and Polgár. After walking there it was time for me to eat a Töki pompos (Bread langos), and then we tasted some dry white wine from Pannonhalma (monastery and World Heritage site in Hungary not far from Györ).

In the end we returned to the Savoyan terrace where we spoke to some winemakers, tasted some more wine, listened to some folk music on stage (with a few enthusiastic people listening), and then we ended our stay at the wine festival walking around in the Tokaj area of the festival. Tokaj is the best known Hungarian wine region, and they are especially famous for their sweet white wines. We tasted some dry white wines first before my friend ended our stay at the festival with a Tokaj Aszu 4 puttonyos from Tokaj Kereskedő ház, and I ended with a late harvest wine from the same region and wine maker. My pick was the best!

All in all we really enjoyed our stay, and though it was a pity about the rain, our mood was super and at least we did not have to stand in line anywhere at all. As we left I started comparing the festival to the beer festival in my head and asked myself the question which was the best of the two festivals in 2012. What was my conclusion?

Beer festival or wine festival?
If the question is whether you should visit the Buda Castle Beer Festival or the International Wine Festival in 2013, you should probably consider the following:

The wine festival is really a wine festival. This is a place to taste lots of wine and you can really get to know the wine makers and their wines at a very high and professional level. At the festival you will therefore not find the big, hot concerts and events and only one large stage, and if you want something else to drink than water, wine and Palinka, you will have a hard time finding such things (can not remember seeing anywhere at all where I could have bought a Coke or similar). So, the wine festival is ideal for wine lovers, but if you are not a big fan of wine, then this is not the best festival.

The beer festival is a beer festival, but at the same time much more. At the beer festival they had three large stages located around in the festival area, there were bigger variety in the food stands and much more to drinks and options for those not into beer at all. So, Budablogger recommends the wine festival to those into wine and who like to taste and enjoy a good conversation while drinking 5-6 glasses of it. The beer festival is best for those who want to party, drink, eat and listen to music from several stages. Of course the best thing is not to pick the beer festival or the wine festival, but to visit both!

What do you guys/girls think?