I had no plans to travel to Europe in January. Airfare to Bucharest from Chicago was trending at an all-time low. Decision made – I would spend the weekend in Romania with my best friend Katie [see posts: In Search of Dracula: A Weekend in Romania and Over the Border: Day Trip to Bulgaria]. The only problem was, there were no return flights that fit my schedule. Except from Budapest. Okay, fine. After all, I have not yet been to Hungary.

I found an €18 EUR flight from Bucharest to Budapest on Wizz Air for Monday afternoon, January 15, 2018. A little over an hour later, we were in Hungary. We only had that one evening to experience Budapest, so we had to be picky with our activities.

Budapest is known for its thermal baths, which operate year-round. We chose to the visit the Szechenyi Thermal Bath located in the City Park.

The Szechenyi Thermal Bath is the biggest and most popular thermal bath in Budapest. Prior to arriving in Budapest, I bought the “Skip-the-Line Szechenyi Spa” entrance tickets through Viator. These tickets gave us access to all indoor and outdoor pools, in addition to locker storage.

After soaking in the pools, we took the subway from the City Park back to the city center. Since I would not be returning to Budapest any time soon, I wanted to at least see some of the city’s main attractions. Unfortunately, we had just missed the last river cruise. With a map in hand, we walked towards the Danube River, across the Szechenyi Chain Bridge, and towards the Hungarian Parliament Building.

After exploring as much of the city center as we could on foot, we headed back to the Wombat’s City Hostel for a quick nap before heading back to the airport to catch our early morning flight home to Chicago via Brussels.

Weekend well spent.