Budapeste + Viena

About the destination: Budapest is known as one of Europe’s most stunning cities. It may be thanks to its impressive surroundings, the Danube River that divides the city, the Buda hills to the west and the Great Plain to the east or due to its varied and beautiful architecture: Renaissance, Byzantine, Neo-Classical, and Art-Nouveau buildings coexist in perfect harmony. Its extensive World Heritage Site includes: the banks of the Danube, Buda Castle Quarter, Andrassy Avenue, Hero’s Square, and the Millennium Underground Railway. To top that, the city has 80 geothermal springs, the world’s largest water cave system where visitors can indulge in a relaxing bath. Budapest became a single city in 1873, occupying both banks of the river Danube, to the west there is Buda and Pest lays at the east. Both sides of the city have very different personalities. Buda is the quiet section of the city. Walking around Buda, travelers will be able to inspect the Castle Quarter and explore the narrow cobbled streets that lead to the Fishermen’s bastion with its fairytale towers, which represent the 7 tribes that existed in the city in the 9th century. This decorative fortification is located atop the Buda Castel Hill and offers the best panoramic view in Budapest. The eastern side, Pest, is where all the action takes place. This section of the city has a fin-de-siècle feel to it and nearly every building has some interesting or unusual detail. Visitors will be invited to take long strolls on its wide boulevards filled with all sorts of shops or enjoy a well-deserved coffee in its grand coffee houses. Pest is home to the parliament building and the Dohari street synagogue, the largest synagogue in Europe. The scars of WWII are still present in the city, bullet holes and shrapnel scorings left over from the Second World War and the 1956 Uprising are still visible in some of the facades, painful reminders of this grey period of history. There are several tributes honoring the Hungarian Jews that lost their lives, as the poignant Shoes on the Danube memorial or the Raoul Wallenberg Holocaust Memorial Park. This side of the river is also considered the cultural heart of the city with numerous art galleries and with more opera, concerts and ballet performances than there are days of the week. The capital’s best restaurants are found in Pest too, and it’s here the nightlife wrestles with until the early hours as well. For a unique drink try a Ruin Pub, Budapest’s network of bars in disused buildings that include former tenement houses, factory buildings and community centres. Budapest has combined all its influences and overcome its complex history to shape its own character, and sure it did it right.

About the destination: Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria. It is a beautiful romantic city and famous for its coffee culture and cafes, classical music and concert halls, historical buildings, horse-drawn carriages, and its charming streets. There is a rich cultural diversity in Vienna, and its location at the very heart of Europe makes it also an excellent starting point for travelling around Europe. Vienna an impressing city to visit, the city is dominated by the Ringstrasse, a four kilometer long boulevard which encircles the center of the city. The city is filled with modern conveniences and attractions but blanketed as well with reminders of a great historical and cultural heritage. Excellent museums, palaces, gardens, architectural triumphs, remnants of ancient inhabitants, statuary, and grand cafes blend with trendy shops, excellent restaurants, accessible musical venues, modern museums and sculpture, and upscale hotels to make Vienna a very attractive. The extensive pedestrianized streets of the old city are a delight, lined by beautiful old buildings, populated by the young and old, filled with local shops, boutiques and cafes, and with the unexpected around every turn. The center city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Vienna is history and music, poetry and culture, modernism and tradition, nostalgia and grandeur.