Product Description

A pocket guide to Budapest. It provides full-colour maps in easy-to-use gatefold format; information about great day trips outside the city; and coverage of the best of Budapest's nightlife, dining and attractions.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #89720 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 96 pages

Customer Reviews

good, but a bit dated
we've just flown back from budapest this afternoon so this is as up to date as it could be.
We always use Lonely Planet. The books are nicely laid out, with all the nitty gritty info you need (like bus numbers) and with a range of budgets in mind. And fab photos. And this book is no exception.
We did find however that this one is a bit out of date. One is the prices- with LP's publishing schedule we always make allowances for that but these prices seemed quite off the mark. We also were unimpressed with some of the eatery recommendations (Fakanal and Cafe Miro in particular).
However the guide to Hungarian food, the walking tours (of which there were an great number of options), the section on Taking the Waters, and the general history were excellent.
We attempted to use the Hungarian phrasebook section but were more embarrassed than fluent- can LP please add a phonetic pronunciation guide?
So it still gets 4/5... and wait for the new edition.

An adequate guide with some problems
This guide to Budapest is sometimes very good, other times quite patchy. The section on history, society & culture will help put your visit in good perspective. The sections on transportation, food, wine and shopping are all very accurate and thorough.

There are some areas in which the guide is quite annoying. The walking tours the author suggests have no maps, and his instructions include things like " a few steps further south and you will find..." if you dont happen to have a compass on you this may not be so easy to follow.

The maps of the city are reasonable, and include metro stops but oddly (and annoyingly) no tram lines.

The section on the thermal baths describes them all quite accurately, but is missing the most basic information on the whole process (eg do you get a towel, do people go naked or wear speedos or something else, is a cubicle included in the entry price, is it safe to leave valuables in a cubicle etc).

The section on telecommunications notes there are "a number" of prepaid international phone cards available, but not what they are called or where to buy them. The author warns against using "country-direct" cards because of the expense, instead recommending (surprise, surprise) Lonely Planet's very own Ekno card. In fact for calls to Australia at least, Ekno costs double per minute than a "country-direct" card.

The guide also recommends flying from Australia to Budapest via London - a strange choice if you consider that you will backtrack nearly 2000km by doing so.

In all the guide is reasonable but is a long way from being the be-all and end-all. There may well be better ones around.

An average guidebook
Budapest is such a vibrant, amazing city which I felt the Lonely Planet to Budapest failed to recognise fully. The person who did most of the writing for the book seem jaded with his topic, and indeed backpackers in general. It was a feeling which was consistent throughout the book & as the series are backpacker oriented, something which I hope is rectified for the next edition. There were great walking tours but little fluency with the city & I ended up abandoning it for all but transport information.