Just wanted to hear people's thoughts on the sites and offerings of Budapest -- is it a city worth visiting? Is it easy to spend 5 days there? What city in Europe would you most compare it to?
Any comments to help us make our decision on whether to go or not would be of great help.

Yes, its worth seeing. Often called the Paris of East Europe. Relatively cheap food, transport, hotels. Easy to combine with a visit to Vienna.

Check out: www.fsz.bme.hu/hungary/budapest/

Yes I would recommend seeing it but the Paris reference is not a recent label. I was hard pressed to compare the current city with Paris. It does have some wonderful musuems, everything seemed to be cheap and I combined it with a trip to Vienna. I also spent time in Sopron as well as Szentendre (sp).

Budapest is most definitely worth seeing!

Thre are many things to see and do - I would recommend a 3-hour city tour to get your bearings and see what places interest you the most.

One of the things I liked the best during my recent visit was the interaction with the people - some of the friendliest and best-informed folks we encountered on our trip to Europe.

A good guide to local boosterism is whether those "Venice of the MidWest" slogans can work in reverse.

Is London the Paris of the English-speaking world? Sort of. Is Paris the London of the French-speaking world? Equally, sort of.

Is Edinburgh the Athens of the North? That's what its burghers have claimed for cemturies. Is (or was) Athens the Edinburgh of the South? Absurd.

Similarly, is Paris the Budapest of NW Europe? The idea's preposterous.

Budapest is a nice town with nice buildings, sometimes excellent music, Europe's best-looking women and good (though by no means of Italian standards) food. If you've got European-length holiday time, it'd make for 5 very pleasant days. If you're as short of holiday time as most working Americans seem to be, combine it with other Central European cities, or Central European countryside.

I've always fancied taking the boat between Vienna and Budapest - partly to see if it really is operated by the Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaft. Whose CEO is presumably the Donaudampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftgeschaftsfuhrer

Budapest is a grand city and well worth a visit of 4 to 5 days. I have also seen it called the Paris of Eastern Europe. People seemed nice and the food was better than I expected. Heard the boat ride from Vienna to Budapest was not all that great.

Budapest is a wonderful city, and it is both well worth visiting and easy to spend 5 days enjoyably. What you do largely depends on your interests, but as a general proposition, the National Museum, Parliament, Castle Hill, the Central Market (in district V) and Vorosmarty ter are minimum essentials. To that I'd add the Ethnographic museum, the Applied Arts museum, and a visit to the baths at the Gellert. Statue Park is another possibility. The list of possibilities is long.

The best way to start is a half-day tour with a live guide (not tape recording), then return to spots of interest. While there, taking the day-long "Danube Bend" tour (to Esztergom, Szentendre and Visegrad) is also recommended.

My view is that Budapest is itself, and not as comparable to other cities as it once was -- times do change. I'd lean toward Vienna as the closest, but even that is more for what the two cities were, and now for seeing the difference a half-century of different governance brought.

I definitely would not recommend combining a visit to Budapest and some other city (save the day trip mentioned above) as you and both cities would get shortchanged with only 5 days.

Food can be functional to superb, the difference depending on your choice of what and where you eat.

Yes! it is worth seeing. It's beautiful
lots of museums , the castle district is very nice, the thermal spas are incredible and very cheap, food is very
good, Parliament and the royal jewls
very impressive. The synagogue and the
jewish museum beautiful and intersting
the public market very fun to see.
the monuments at heros square pretty
cool and the national art galleries and
the art museum incredibles. the fisherman bastion very cool and the
catherdal and churches awsome. I'm going for the the 2nd. time. if you go
spend 3-to 4 days in budapest and take
extra day to take the Danube bend day
tour , it will take you to 3 other towns very impresive. Have fum planning the trip. good hotels to stay are the Marriott, Hilton westend great
location , great price.

a couple thoughts:

3 days is all you need there.
the hilton is wonderful
its a cheap city
the city tour is one of the best Ive done
in the basement of the hilton is a fabulous wine bar in the original cellar.
if you go to a traditional bath house be prepared for no english speakers