Day/Side trips from Budapest
 

Hi everyone. Lots of questions..My DH and I will be in Budapest in August for a business trip. We are thinking of going over early (app. 5 days?) and doing some day trips and/or overnight trips from the city. What places would you recommend? Would you rent a car or is using the train a better idea? Are 5 additional days too many for this area. We plan to do sightseeing in the city during the last 5 days so we would be planning a total of 10 days for the entire trip.
Are there overnight and/or day river trips on the Danube? My DH loves to be on the water. Thanks for your ideas and suggestions.

Just returned from Vienna, Budapest and Prague.
We hired a driver (3 of us) to pick us up in Vienna and drive to Budapest. No shlepping luggage from hotel to train station etc!!!! It was great and the price worked out to be pretty comparable. We enjoyed "Bela" so much we asked him to pick us up the next morning and we'd tour the city. He was so informative and just a really nice person. He was well travelled himself. The next day we had him take us to Visegrad and Szentendre. He was excellent. Everything was tailored to our liking and again very reasonable. He is very accomodating. I know he has been mentioned on this website before and that is how I contacted him. Treat yourself to a great experience and contact him.
He can be reached at [email protected] . I will check back periodically to see if I can further assist.

My husband and I are in the process of booking out trip to Budapest, Vienna and Prague for May, 2007. I am interested in travelprincess' recommendations since she did the same trip. We, too, were thinking of hiring a private driver to take us between Budapest and Vienna and I just e-mailed Bela to get his rates. We also were thinking of doing the same between Vienna and Prague but can't find any recommended drivers on this board. Any recommendations for guides for the Jewish tour in each city? Thanks.

Hi bigmamma
Bela is just a great guy. He really gives you a feel for his country. If you can afford the extra go for it. I'm not sure if he does transfers between Budapest and Prague, but ask him.
We had another driver for this trip and we had to return to Vienna for our plane home.
We wanted to see Cesky Krumlov, so our driver, Mike, picked us up in Prague, we toured CK and then proceeded to Vienna later that day. Again, we found everyone so accomodating, interesting, knowledgeable etc.
Mike would pick you up in Vienna and take you to Prague.
Contact Mike Jakubuv [email protected]
He is recommended in Rick Steves book and by moi!!!
As for the Jewish sections, we took the boat tour in Prague which concludes with a walk through the Jewish section.
I think most tours are pretty good. a beautiful section of the city!
You are in for a real treat visiting these cities and their wonderful people!

Bigmamma, could you please let us know Belas's rates when you find out. Thanks and aloha.

We just returned (last week) from Prague, Budapest, Bruges and Amsterdam.

I really see no reason to hire a tour of the Jewish areas of Prague and Budapest.

In Prague there's a very well organized tour (mapped out in sequence) of about 6 sights each with a different theme. They're all within 2-3 blocks of each other. The only choice you have to make is if you'll double (almost) up on the admission and include the Old-New Synagogue. We passed since the Jewish Museum in Prague tour include 4-5 Synagogues (and their internal presentations), the Cemonial building and cemetary. All presentations are extremely well documented, complete and in English and Czech.

Hungary was a different story. The Tony Curtis Foundation funded a massive renovation of the Main Synagogue. It absolutely beautiful. There's one other synagogue in the area and it's dilapidated (sp), in need of total renovation and no funding or plans to do it. Other than that, the area is quite run down. It had the appearance of some developer buying up buildings cheaply for renovation. There was much old furniture lying on the sidewalks outside the buildings.

A contrast in two cities for sure.