Budapest

We spent a weekend in Budapest. It's a short 2 hour flight from London. We arrived Friday evening, stayed in Pest, the east side of the Danube. We got a great deal on a 5 star hotel called the Corinthia Grand Royal. The first day we headed over to Buda in the morning, walked around Castle Hill, visited the thermal baths at Gellert (both cold and hot!). The second day we visited Heroes Square and it's many statues. We went to the beautiful museum of Fine Art. We walked through City Park (Varosliget). The city park has Vajdahunyad Castle which was this amazing mix of architecture styles, Romanesque, gothic, renaissance, baroque....
This weekend they also had the "Bridge Fest" on Chain bridge which was fun to walk through.
We could see that the city is still in the process of growth. There are still some visible signs from the 40s, 50s. They still use the Forint, so make sure to visit the cash point at the airport before getting in the official taxi queue.
The people were very nice, many spoke English which helped. I thought Budapest was so different than any area of western Europe I've visited, I found it very interesting. My ancestors lived in Austria-Hungary 100 years ago, I imagine how they would feel to see the changes since then!
The city was also less dense, less people. Tourism was obviously there but it wasn't crowded like other destinations.
The weather was wonderful, we sat for a couple hours by the Gellert pools outside, enjoying a Dreher (or two!) and the sunshine.