Getting Around Budapest
As I have mentioned before I love exploring a city on foot. For the most part, that’s just what we’ve been doing. We did two 10 mile days last weekend, wandering around from Hero’s park, in the east of Pest, to Castle Hill in Buda. Up to Margarets Park, and back down through downtown via the Danube. It’s been amazing, everywhere you look there’s something to see. There is no wrong turn, every street and alley yields some visual gem. It’s quite hard to put your camera around in this city, the moment you do… there’s something else you have to capture.
Metro, Trams and Buses
We did realize though that is you want to get somewhere in a timely fashion, the metro and trams are necessary. I did some research on getting single fare tickets, vs one-week tickets, vs the month ticket. Turns out for us, the monthly pass was the most cost-effective, and I have to say I love the east of just having the pass, and not worrying what ticket I have to buy each time. To buy tickets, there are machines outside, and inside each of the metro stations- the machines can be used in English, and take credit cards or HUF. Buying the tickets is very straightforward.
The monthly pass covers the metro lines, buses, trams, and ferry’s during the week ( you’ll have to pay an extra fee if you want to take a boat during the weekend). Using a combination of these modes of transport you can reach every corner of the city. The cost of the pass was 9500 HUF or about $35. When I think of the cost of PT in the states, this is a serious bargain.
So far all of the PT has been very easy to use, hop on, hop off. If you have the monthly pass you just carry it with you and show it to the blue-suited ticket checkers if they happen to ask. If you buy the single-use tickets, there is a machine when you get to the track, where you insert the ticket and get a stamp, no need to check out like in Amsterdam.
Getting to the city from the airport takes about an hour, but it’s not very difficult. The fare is covered with your monthly pass.
You need to get to Kőbánya-Kispest Metro station, which can be accessed by tram, bus or metro depending on where in the city you are departing from. From there, you exit the station, and you’ll see buses. Look for the 200E. It runs to the airport, it makes several stops, but it will get you there.
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