Hello again,
One of the first places we visited in Budapest was City Park. We actually came here twice because there was so much to see. On one day, we looked at the museums and walked around the whole park to see what was there and on the other day, we went to Budapest Zoo and went ice skating in the evening.
There’s quite a few things to do in City Park so if we visited every single thing, we’d have spent our whole holiday there. City Park is home to Heroes’ Square, an amusement park, a circus, Széchenyi baths and Vajdahunyad Castle as well as the zoo and ice skating.
Heroes’ Square
Heroes’ Square sits between Kunsthalle Műcsarnok and Szépművészeti Múzeum, which are both art galleries. Although we didn’t go inside either of them because we were short on time, we still got to see the sun setting in the middle of it all, which was lovely all the same.
Vajdahunyad Castle
Across from the ice skating rink, we saw this palace and thought we’d have a little look around. The photos don’t really do it justice, it was a lot taller and more stunning in person. Bizarrely, when we were walking around the castle grounds we saw a man dressed up as the grim reaper and loads of people were lining up to have pictures with him. Not sure what all that was about to be honest.
Outside Vajdahunyad Castle a little bit of water had frozen over and some children were actually ice skating on it too. Cem made me walk on it with him and I was terrified that the ice was going to break and we were going to fall in the water, even though the water was probably a few inches deep. In the photo above you might notice Cem pointing and smiling. As I was taking that picture he was showing me that he wanted to go and walk on the ice. I’ve never seen someone so excited about a frozen puddle…
Széchenyi Thermal Baths
We didn’t go in to the baths but we caught a glimpse of the inside and walked all the way around it. The building itself is huge and looks like a palace and the baths were also packed with people.
Ice Skating
After the practise we had at Winter Wonderland, I was hoping that me and Cem wouldn’t fall over in front of all the ice skating pros, who pretty much skated like olympians compared to us. The more and more laps we did, the more faith I had in our ice skating abilities.
A few laps in, Cem must have tried dancing to the music that was playing but failed terribly and started to fall backwards. As I tried to stop him from falling, he fell forwards instead and used me to cushion his fall. He fell on me in front of everyone and as painful as it was, we could barely skate afterwards because we were laughing so much.
We definitely need a little more practise before our next ice skating adventure.
We couldn’t believe how big the ice skating rink was or how many people came to skate either. Compared to how much we’ve paid to go ice skating in Winter Wonderland, skating here was incredibly cheap and definitely worth the money. Also, you don’t just get an hour slot. Once you’ve paid to go ice skating at 4pm when it opens for the evening, you can stay until 8pm when it closes. We ended up skating for about an hour and a half but if we so keen to rush back to our hotel and go into the spa we probably would’ve skated for ours.
We ended up getting the taxi home because I felt like I was going to freeze to death if I walked back to our hotel again, which in fairness was over an hour’s walk away. It was worth it though because it meant we could sit in the spa for longer.
As always, thank you for reading!
Let me know where your favourite holiday was and what sort of things you did…
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Bye for now,
Courteney x
courteneynoonan.co.uk 
Beautiful post! I can’t believe how big the ice skating rink is!!! Enjoyed every min of the post!
Thank you!
I always think this would be a beautiful place to spend a winter in, and you are proving me right. How beautiful your photos are! Loving the rink, too!
It’s so beautiful! I’d love to go back again
I love ice skating! This looks so stunning and I love the idea of being in the open air. What a fantastic place to travel as well, Budapest looks beautiful!
You write so well! Really enjoyed reading your post (and having a nosey!).
Emma X
Thanks Emma! It means a lot to me x
I am such a castle fanatic, the history behind them is so interesting! Thanks for letting me view this majestic building through your eyes!
I love them too! Thanks for reading 🙂
What a stunning city and rounding off with a skate on the outdoor rink is perfect 🙂
Perfect is definitely the word I’d use 🙂
Wow, what a beautiful place. Living in Florida we don’t have very many places to ice skate. And both times we did, it was on inside rinks.
I only really skated inside before this – it’s a totally different experience 🙂
Glad to hear you didn’t fall into the ice puddle!! I don’t like ice skating because it always hurts my ankles ): looks like a wonderful place!
Thank you! Skating really hurt my knees but it was well worth it in the end 🙂
Such beautiful pics!! It looks like a lovely place to spend any day! We have always spent our holidays at home. As much as I think it will be amazing to spend them elsewhere, having two kids staying home surrounded by familiar comforts is what keeps us here.
I felt like I was there. Love that. Makes me want to go on a date with my husband ice skating 🙂
You should definitely go! It’s such a fun thing to do as a couple 🙂
Sounds like there was lots to do in the City Park. And a spa hotel sounds amazing, hope you had the best time!
There was so much to do we could barely fit it all in! And thank you – we really did 🙂
This is a beautiful post and a nice place to visit, I really want to experience and enjoy snow someday.
Thank you! I don’t usually like snow but I lived it in Budapest 🙂
Castles and ice skating, how lovely! Sounds like a dream vacation! Must try to visit!
It looked like something out of a fairtytale!
Omg what fabulous photos!!! Ice skating is so fun!!!! I went all the time when I was a kid.
Thank you! I never went as a kid so I’m making up for it now haha 🙂
This must have been such an amazing experience. Ice skating is so much fun but not fun when others fall on top of you.
Budapest seems amazing! I’m glad you all were able to go skating, but looking at the photos, my favorite part would have been seeing the castles.
Thank you! It was the best holiday 🙂
I love places like this that have some historic history. The ice skating looks so much fun
It was so lovely to visit!