Winter time in Budapest

AMBIANCE OF THE CITY

Winter time in Budapest is the best time to avoid tourist crowd and if you keep your eyes open you can really get to know the real Budapest, as we locals live in it. Although it might be quite cold, and the sun sets very early, but maybe snowfall can make your stay memorable. You can enjoy museums peacefully, you can lost yourself in local food, or if you arrive in December you can just walk and enjoy the city dressed up in Christmas Lightning and enjoy the architecture. Stop for a bite or a drink at a cute little restaurant, a tea-house or coffee shop that come across and wonder around in the Christmas Fares.

If you are in Budapest around the winter you must not miss to try the warm, freshly made “Kürtőskalács”, our popular Transylvanian sweets that is sold all around the city. It’s sweet smell will lead you to the closest place where you can buy it! 

THERMAL BATHS AND PLAYING CHESS

And the most of all winter is the best time to soak for hours and hours in the hot springs! It's winter here in Budapest, but nobody seems to mind! Here, where hot water springs are a national resource, bathing in one of the city's 130 mineral spring pools is part of the local lifestyle even in the winter time! These springs have earned Budapest the reputation as the "Bathing City" and as an international medicinal bathing area since at least the 1930s. In Budapest, many of the springs feed stunning public swimming pools including the recently restored Széchenyi - a neo-Baroque complex where 13 of the 18 pools are thermal and men play in-water chess as steam rises around them. The Gellért Bath is exquisitely romantic; the indoor and outdoor pool complexes (and the recently renovated exterior of the building) are beyond beautiful. Come and try to beat the old in-water chess players!

CULTURAL ENTERTAINMENT

If you are ready for cultural entertainment, there is a lot of programs that the city can offer you! The traditional closing event of the year in Budapest is the Gala Concert of the ”Hundred Member” Gipsy Orchestra on the 30th of December in the Budapest Congress & World Trade Center. Although the tickets are not cheap, but the experience is very unique and unforgettable. The audience will get the chance to hear the pieces of Liszt, Brahms, Strauss and Khachaturian in the interpretation of outstanding musicians.
Read more: www.viparts.hu.

Until the 23rd of January you can visit the exhibition of Fernando Botero’s paintings at the Museum of Fine Arts. Rotund and voluptuous forms, characteristically simple and expressive figures, people, animals and objects dominate the works of Colombian-born Fernando Botero. A selection of the masterpieces of the last twenty years can be seen at the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest. You can reach the museum with a nice walk al along the famous Andrássy Avenue from Oktogon. 

If you are interested in the Hungarian art, there is a very unique possibility to see a Trilogy until April in the Hungarian National Gallery of our most famous painter Mihály Munkácsy. Mihály Munkácsy undoubtedly reached the pinnacle of his career with The Christ Trilogy, even though the three paintings were only exhibited for the first time together almost 100 years after his death.

And for some retro experience you cannot miss the Exhibition of the poster-calendars from the 1970-80’s! In the 1970-80’s the most popular year-end offerings of the Hungarian trading life were the card- and poster-calendars. Every trading company had the calendars made, especially nice women on them. Now they have composed poster-calendars with legendary models from that time.

Read more: www.mkvm.hu/indexen.php?p=list&id=87&tbl=kiallitasen.