My husband and I are finally going on a honeymoon, 17 years later! Other than short, 2-3 day trips, all our vacations have been with our kids. We are hoping for a romantic getaway, and are trying to decide between a week in Lisbon (with day trips to Sintra and Obidos), or a week in Budapest.

We've recently been to Rome, Florence, Siena, Munich, Mexico (with the kids) And are going back to other cities in Italy as well as a first visit to Paris this coming January.

Which one of our choices will be most culturally different from previously visited European cities? We love great food and wine, beautiful vistas, hiking. We will be quite museumed-out after Paris, and are wondering if Budapest will be too similar?

Thank you!

Budapest will be most culturally different. We were there in late fall and weather wasn't the best but May would be nicer. A week may be too long. Day trips?

The weather is likely to be better in Lisbon. We are going to be in Lisbon for a week in late May. We are looking forward to it.


Not much help I guess...sorry.

Budapest with a side trip to Pecs. From my trip report:


Pécs is a wonderful town. We stayed at the Hotel Palatinus (http://www.danubiushotels.com/our-ho...960.1472144142 $93 for two nights, buffet breakfast included) right in the center of town. We visited the Szolnay factory compound which has an important collection of its products through its existence. It also has an excellent café where I ordered what in France would be called un duo de tartares which was such a beautiful presentation that I had to take a picture (I usually refrain) https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...7623003638578/ The Zsolnay center is within easy walking distance from the center of town. The town also has quite a few Organic Architecture buildings, and some Art Nouveau buildings, especially the main post office. There are Roman ruins to be visited, a mosque that is now a church, and a fairly large synagogue which has a small museum component to it. In it I learned something interesting: in January 1945 the synagogue was already a refugee center while Budapest was still experiencing Fascist massacres of Jews (see the shoe memorial by the Danube). It is a town worth exploring.

It also has good restaurants. One night we ate at a modern restaurant—it would not have been out of place in San Francisco or Paris—where I was served a foie gras crème brulée and excellent catfish filet (http://www.jokaibisztro.hu/ $56). The next evening we ate at a café around the corner from the first restaurant where we had the excellent mussels previously mentioned (http://pecscityguide.com/2015/bloff-...-fish-in-pecs/ $56). I also ordered the mackerel, but the waiter suggested that it was not the freshest, that it would be better to have the sea bass that came in that day. In both restaurant we had excellent service.

Here are the pictures of Pécs incorporated in my Hungarian album that goes back to 1975: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mksfca...003638578/show