GLAMOUR ON A SHOESTRING

Petra Shepherd joined Travel Channel for its launch back in 1994. She looks after our research and works on all original productions. Petra’s one of the most recognisable faces in the travel industry and when she’s not on the canapé circuit promoting the channel, she spends every free moment travelling. She’s visited over 70 countries and prefers back packing to 5 * luxury, unless of course it’s in the name of research!

This month she shares with us a trip to Budapest with her mother…

The boom in budget airlines to Eastern Europe means it’s possible to spend very little on a flight and splash out instead on your accommodation. So what better way to treat my mother for Mother’s Day, than a weekend in Hungary’s capital city, Budapest. By paying only £45 (including taxes) for our return ticket, a stay at The Four Seasons Gresham Palace, the city’s newest luxury hotel, suddenly wasn’t going to break the bank plus we could go even further and spoil ourselves in the city’s many spas.

The Gresham Palace was built in 1906 and is one of the finest examples of Art Nouveau architecture in Europe. The building has been restored to its original
splendour, preserving its turn of the century elegance with the addition of a 21st century infrastructure. There’s a magnificent glass cupola, the flawless service that Four Seasons is renowned for, and beds that are more like clouds.

The hotel has 2 restaurants, Pava offering contemporary Italian cuisine and The
Gresham Café providing guests with Hungarian specialities such as goulash and mouth-watering pastries such as Darazsfeszek, a Hungarian sticky bun.
Modelled after the legendary cafe frequented by Budapest's intelligentsia and artists in the 1930s, the restaurant retains the same name as the original; in Hungarian, Gresham Kavehaz.

The 179-room hotel, which opened in June 2004, faces Budapest’s historic Chain
Bridge and offers panoramic views of the Danube and other city landmarks. Budapest is a spectacular place capturing more than 2,000 years of history. It’s beautifully laid out over both banks of the River Danube giving you two towns for the price of one. Elegant, historic Buda built on hills, occupies the Western bank of the river and looks down on the businesses, shops and government buildings of Pest, the town on the plains to the East. By the way, the Danube sadly isn’t blue though the story goes that it is for those who are in love.

From the hotel, on the Pest side, it’s an easy walk cross the famous bridge to the Buda side, where you can take the siklo, a funicular railway up Castle Hill. Castle Hill is the tourist heart of the city and contains many of Budapest’s most important monuments and museums whilst the quiet, cobbled, picturesque lanes are in striking contrast to the bustling streets down below. Be sure to visit Fishermen’s Bastion, a late 19th century structure with a 100 metre long promenade offering great views of Pest, the Parliament Building and the Danube, Matthias Church and the Citadel. Matthias Church is the 19th century successor to Buda’s 13th century coronation church. It’s an important national shrine and a stunning example of neo-gothic architecture.

Budapest’s most iconic and visible symbol is the huge neo-Gothic Parliament building on the left bank of the Danube. It shares some similarities with London’s Houses of Parliament but was designed by Hungarian architect Imre Steindl and took a thousand workers 17 years 1885 – 1902 to build. The exterior facade is lined with 90 statues of great figures from Hungarian history. Inside are 691 rooms, 10 courtyards and 29 staircases. The highlight of the interior is Miihaly Munkacsy’s huge panoramic painting of The Magyar Conquest of the Country, celebrating the entry of the seven Magyar tribes into the Carpathian Basin in the Middle Ages. There are guided tours daily at 10 am and 2 pm.

The other must see on the Pest side of the city is St Stephen’s Basilica, Budapest’s largest church able to hold up to 8,500 people. Apparently it took so long to build that Budapesters used to joke “I’ll pay you back when the basilica is finished”. In a chapel, you’ll find the mummified hand of St Stephen. It’s Hungary’s holiest relic.

If you plan seeing lots of sights in two to three days, consider buying a
Budapest Card. The Budapest Card represents good value for short-term visitors, a 2 day card costs HUF 4,350 and 3 day card UF 5,450 It provides free admission to most museums and galleries, as well as discounts on tours, the baths, selected shops and restaurants. It’s also a public transport pass.

Shopping normally features high up the list of things to do. However, my mother and I are not big shoppers and prefer to soak up the local culture. If you do fancy some shopping though, a great way to stock up on souvenirs is to visit The Nagycsarnok (Great Market Hall), the largest market in the city. Foodstuffs like goose liver and caviar that are expensive or difficult to buy elsewhere make great gifts as do the many varieties of paprika. Porcelain (especially Herend and Zsolnay) is also a lot cheaper than you’ll find elsewhere in Europe.

Built on thermal springs and mineral waters that flow from the limestone rock of the Budha hills, Budapest has been a spa since Roman times. But the bathing culture really flourished during the period of Turkish rule in the 16th century. Today, Hungarians go in droves, spa culture is as important to Budapest as café culture is to Paris. There are altogether 123 natural hot springs, producing around 50 million litres of warm, mineral-rich water each year. The water’s medicinal properties attract thousands of people looking for relief from stiff necks, arthiritis and chronic back pain. There are altogether 24 medical spas, public baths, and indoor and outdoor swimming pools in the capital today, 10 with special medical and therapeutic value. The city’s most famous baths are the Art Nouveau Gellert Baths, which you enter through the side entrance of the Grand Gellert Hotel. They’re the most luxurious but also the most touristy. We opted instead to visit the Szechenyi Baths, famous for their elderly gentleman playing chess and one of Europe’s largest bath complexes. They’re also the deepest and hottest baths in Budapest. The water reaches the surface at a temperature of 75 degrees. Most fun was the outdoor jacuzzi or whirlpool where a jet of water pushes you round and round a circular pool.

Note photography is not allowed and bathing hats must be worn in the outdoor swimming pool. Budapest’s largest Turkish baths, the Rudas, recently reopened the newly renovated swimming pool, and the men’s spa facilities and treatment centre will open later this year. But Budapest’s newest pampering experience is the Mandala Day Spa. Visitors to the spa can treat themselves to a wide range of experiences, from a soak in a ‘Cleopatra’ bath to a ‘Head to Toe’
Rebalancing massage.

Top of your list of evening activities must be a visit to The Hungarian State Opera
House. The setting alone makes any performance here extra special and standards are world class, at least as high as those of London, Moscow or St Petersburg but you’ll be paying less than £20 for a top price centre stalls ticket. . Performances tend to alternate between opera and ballet. We saw the ballet of The Taming of the Shrew and it was outstanding. What’s more everybody dresses up for the theatre, something I haven’t seen in London for years, there were long dresses and black ties in abundance. You can understand why people want to dress up, no doubt trying to outshine the frescoes and incredibly rich decorations inside.

There’s plenty in Budapest to occupy a weekend but if tours are your thing, one of the most popular is The Danube Bend. A full day will take you to the towns of
Visegrad and its hill top fortress, Estergom and then to the Baroque Artists village
of Szentendre for cheap souvenir shopping! This is an excellent day trip.

For 50 years before World War 11, Budapest was one of the leading cultural capitals of Europe, in the same league as Vienna and Prague. With the return to democracy in 1989 and the increase in airlines and top class hotels, the city can safely say that it’s on its way back. The New York Hotel, incorporating the landmark New York Café is currently being restored to its former neo-baroque glory by Boscolo Hotels and is set to open later this year. From a Western perspective, Budapest remains a vacation bargain and I for one am hungry for more.