News Archives - Page 10 of 31

Revolution day in Hungary – October 23rd

Posted on October 23, 2012June 4, 2021 by Budapest Guide

Today is the national day of Hungary and October 23rd is the day of the uprising against the communists in 1956. The revolution did not last for too long, but the spirit of the Hungarians still live and their courage to stand up against the communists gave courage to other nations around the world, even though it did not succeed the way the Hungarians hoped for.

Revolution in 1956 – picture from fortepan

October 23rd is now one of three national days in Hungary, and on October 23rd people have the chance to relax at home and maybe go out into the city to buy an ice cream, eat some chimney cake and of course take part in one of many demonstrations in town.

There will be lots of political demonstrations in Budapest today, the biggest one probably arranged by the Elisabeth Bridge on the Pest side from 15.00. Quite some of the demonstrations are arranged by the left side in Hungary trying to protest and stand together against the right side which is currently leading the nation, but the right side will also have their gatherings today. If you want to understand more about Hungarian politics, why not read this interesting article on the subject of Hungarian politics.

All shops are closed in Budapest today, but restaurants, confectioneries, cinemas and museums are mostly open!

New hand luggage policy from Wizz Air

Posted on October 9, 2012June 4, 2021 by Budapest Guide

It has only been a matter of time before this would come, and here it is. New rules concerning hand luggage, making the airlines able to make you pay more for the luggage you bring with you. The question is only when RyanAir, EasyJet and the rest of the low cost airlines follow Wizz Air’s example. But what are the new luggage, or let us say hand luggage policy from Wizz Air about? As of know when you do booking you can get one hand luggage for free, but the max size is 42x32x25cm, which is small enough to fit under the seat in front of you. Until now the size has been 55cmx40cmx20cm.

For larger hand luggage, with size up to 56x45x25cm you will now have to pay, and the price is 9 GBP or 10 Euro. This is of course if you book it as your order your flight online.

Here comes the official information from the Wizz Air homepage: (source)

Beginning October 04^th, passengers booking Wizz Air seats* for travel from October 24^th onwards can travel with a free small cabin bag (up to 42x32x25cm) or pay a ₤9 online fee to bring a large cabin bag (up to 56x45x25cm) on board. Goods purchased at the airport after security (an important source of revenue for Wizz Air’s 81 airport partners) will continue to be allowed in the cabin for free. This new policy does not apply to bookings made before October 04^th or for flights departing before October 24^th, except on the trial route London-Katowice where this policy already applies. Wizz Air believes this new ₤9 large cabin bag online fee will incentivize passengers to bring smaller bags on board the aircraft while only those choosing to bring large bags will pay for it. For new bookings on flights departing from 24^th October, all Wizz Air fares will be discounted by ₤4.5 ** to share the expected cost savings with our passengers.

New cabin baggage policy from 04 October

Cabin Baggage Type	Size (volume)	Examples	Fee
Small cabin bag	Up to 42x32x25cm; (30 L)	handbag, small backpack, laptop bag, (must fit under the seat)	FREE
Large cabin bag	Larger than small cabin bag and up to 56x45x25cm; (60 L)	trolley bags	₤9 (online)
Cabin baggage policy: 1 small cabin bag OR 1 large cabin bag per pax. Goods purchased at the airport after security will also be allowed in the cabin for free!

Michael Powell, CFO of Wizz Air, said:“When it comes to low fares Wizz Air knows no half measures! Wizz Air is announcing its new and innovative cabin baggage policy after a successful trial confirmed that more onboard space and cost savings are achieved when passengers bring less large bags into the cabin. With the vast majority of passengers willing to bring smaller bags on board we are now the first European carrier to eliminate a chronic problem in the airline industry faced by all airlines, but, even more important for consumers, Wizz Air is again pioneering in delivering lower fares by passing on the cost savings in the form of discounted fares for all passengers. We leave it for high fare airlines to tackle their costs by raising fares and levying unavoidable fuel surcharges while Wizz Air passengers will continue to pay only for the services they use. Today we encourage our passengers to travel smart and bring only a small bag on board. To pass on the expected cost savings we are immediately discounting by ₤4.5 all fares available for booking under the new cabin bag policy at wizzair.com.”

Budapest in October 2012

Posted on September 27, 2012April 8, 2026 by Budapest Guide

If you are coming to Budapest in October there are quite a lot of nice programs waiting for you. In this month you can join in as the Hungarian celebrate their national day on October 23rd, you can check out the Palinka and Sausage festival (October 4-7), run in the biggest marathon of the year in Budapest (October 7), visit the CAFE festival (October 5-14) and do quite a lot of programs.

The average temperature is about 13 Celsius, but it can get much warmer, so bring both a t-shirt and a jacket.

If you wonder where you should stay while in Budapest, we can warmly recommend one of the following hotels:
– Mercure City Center
– Erzsebet City
– Kempinski

This is a short article about Budapest in October, but if you want a much more informative and detailed information you should read the following article: Budapest in October by Budapest blog

New flights from Budapest to Tel Aviv and Kiev

Posted on September 11, 2012June 4, 2021 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 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.

Tons of Lufthansa flights cancelled today

Posted on September 7, 2012June 4, 2021 by Budapest Guide

We 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!

Lufthansa strike affecting Budapest

Posted on September 5, 2012June 4, 2021 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.

A new Budapest blog on the horizon

Posted on August 13, 2012April 8, 2026 by Budapest Guide

There are many blogs about Budapest on the internet, and in fact you can find a Budapest blog on our website as well. Do not miss out on our blog, because we constantly write new articles with interesting information about exhibitions in different museums like the Museum of Fine Arts and the Art Hall in Budapest. But, it is not only about typical cultural happenings, but we also write about the cool upcoming concerts in Budapests most popular concert venues such as Budapest Sportarena and similar venues.

So, check out our Budapest blog and stay up to date on whatever we write about. But, if one Budapest blog is not enough for you, we can tell you that a new Budapest blog is now on the horizon and the first post published seems promising looking into the future. So if you are interested in this new blog, you should visit www.budapestguide.org where you can find the Budapest blog. So far Budablogger is the only blogger active on the blog, but rumours tell us that there might be more bloggers working on the project, so maybe this will be the second best Budapest blog on the web someday, of course after our own Budapest blog.

A good blog is not like a newspaper, it always features interesting topics, and they write about them in a different way and from a bit different point of view. That is our goal, and that is the goal of the people at budapestguide.org. So, check it out and write some comments to the first and later posts if you have time and would to!

In their first blog post they congratulated the Hungarian Olympic winners, after winning 8 gold medals, 4 silver medals and 5 bronze medals in the Summer Olympics in London. We also join in and congratulate the winners, and let us not forget the handball team for men who got an amazing 4th place in the handball tournament.

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!

Budapest Airport Terminal 1 – newest parking lot in town!

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Budapest Guide

Just a few months after Budapest Airport terminal 1 closed down due to lack in passengers it is about to reopen as a parking lot for people wanting to leave their car outside the centre of Budapest and keep traveling with train from there. This is an ideal solution as the new Ferihegy train station opened some years ago, and it can serve as an easier way to get to the city center, instead of bringing the car all the way.

The fee for parking here is supposed to be around 500 HUF per hour if you park from 0-12 hours. The monthly ticket for parking here, much more interesting for people who would like to use this on a daily basis is to cost 12,000 HUF.

Budapest Airport parking

Posted on June 27, 2012November 27, 2013 by Budablogger

For many people coming to Budapest the place of arrival is Budapest Airport. The airport has two terminals, terminal 1 and 2, but earlier this year the owner closed down terminal 1 due to few passengers, a natural consequence of the bankruptcy of the Hungarian airline Malév earlier this year. Even though RyanAir immediately launched more than 30 new destinations from Budapest, it still seems that the passenger amount decreased so much that they had to close down terminal one a few months later. This all lead to the closure of Budapest Airport Terminal 1 in the end of May 2012, and since then only terminal 2 has been in use.

A few weeks ago the news was given that the parking lot in front of Terminal 1 would be turned into a P+R parking lot, in which people coming from outside Budapest can park their cars and continue towards the city center of Budapest using either the train stopping at the Ferihegy stop next to the airport, or traveling with bus 200E from the airport towards Köbánya Kispest. From that stop travelers can travel on with metro towards the city center. This is of course nice, but what is going on at the parking lots in front of Terminal 2?

One of the fears of many tourists coming to Budapest deals with the taxi drivers of the city. Can we trust them? Will they trick me? Will they add additional fees for luggage and so on, thus giving me a far higher price than I should pay if I got a “normal” taxi? As a solution to this Budapest Airport Zrt. continuously try to make it harder for the unofficial airport taxi’s to operate at the airport, and so helping Fö Taxi (the official airport transfer company with set prices) to get more passengers. Until now there are lots of drivers approaching you as you arrive in the terminals, claiming to be official taxi drivers, offering you transportation to your Budapest hotel. Their cars have been parked outside the terminal and they simply get some passengers and drive on towards the city. Many warnings have been given against these so called official airport taxi drivers, but they still seem to get a lot of transfers, because they can still be seen.

New parking rules at Budapest Airport from August 8th, 2012

For the last years it has been impossible to park in front of the arrival terminal at Budapest Airport for anyone else than the official airport taxi’s and the airport mini bus. This means that even large tourist groups with buses ordered needed to walk up one floor to the departures part and walk out there, and then they could find their bus. This has been a really stupid solution and none really liked it. Since August 8th there have been changes, and now anyone can drive up in front of both the arrival and the departure part of Budapest Airport, thus with some heavy price changes.

If you want to park in front of the arrival or the departure part of Budapest Airport Terminal 2 they have introduced the so called Premium Parking since August 8th. The price for parking there is 2000 HUF for 30 minutes, but if you leave within 5 minutes the parking is free. It is though interesting that many workers with quite normal wages (500 HUF per hour) will need to work for four hours to be able to park for 30 minutes in front of the terminal. Of course those people with such salaries normally don’t fly so much, but still, this needs to be taken into consideration when setting a parking fee. If you walk outside the terminal building and down some stairs you will get to the big parking lots, and there you can park for 800 HUF if you leave within thirty minutes. If you leave within 10 minutes the parking is free.

I have been outside Budapest Airport several times since the new parking fees and rules were introduced, and it is interesting to see that there are almost no cars to see in front of the arrival and the departure part of Budapest Airport, the so called Premium Parking. In general there have been 3-4 cars parked in the parking lot, and everyone else just drive through picking up their passengers already waiting for them, or dropping of the passengers from the car, and then leaving within 5 minutes, thus not paying any parking fee at all. The question is if this is good for the airport, or not? An empty parking lot where everyone just drivers through, thus making no money, or a full parking lot with lower fees, but still making more money?

With the new system it has gotten much harder for pirate taxi’s to operate at Budapest Airport and that is for sure positive, but they are still there, so if you arrive at Budapest Airport, you should still look out for them, and just walk pass them as you arrive. It is possible to order private airport transfers before arrival, but if you have not done that, then you should walk by the drivers offering their services, and walk towards the official stand of the Airport Taxi or Fő Taxi outside the terminal building. The price of an airport transfer in Budapest with your own taxi driver should probably be between 6000-10,000 HUF, of course depending on where you stay, but if your hotel is in Budapest, it should fit into this price category.

If you would like to park your car at Budapest Airport for a longer period this can easily be done (so called long-time parking), as the airport has protected long time parking available, and at quite nice prices. This summer they have an offer giving you parking for 8 days costing only 9990 HUF, so this should be considered if you would like to leave your car at the airport.

Ferihegy, Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport or Budapest Airport

The airport in Budapest has two terminals, and earlier these have been known as Budapest Ferihegy Airport terminal 1 and 2 (A & B). Terminal A and B are located next to one another, so you can walk between the two terminals in one or two minutes. Not long ago it was renamed (as was lots of other squares, streets and so on in Budapest) to Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport or as we know it in Hungarian “Budapest Liszt Ferenc Nemzetközi Repülőtér.” In Hungary many people still use the name Ferihegy Airport, while others use the new name and call is Ferenc Liszt Airport. A third group simply call it Budapest Airport… What is important for you if you arrive to the airport is to know that it is the same airport they speak of, no matter which of the three names they use.