Dear Travelers to Budapest: Don’t Come Until You Have Understood These 6 Things

2. We don’t want to be a part of your stag parties.

If you see a group of girls in a bar, minding their own business and not paying any attention to you, then you can take it that we definitely don’t want to be involved in your stag games. And no, we surely don’t want to help you to remove the duct tape with which two huge rubber penises are fixed to your hands, no matter how often you interrupt our conversation to ask us to do so. Escaping the dozens of stag parties that flood Budapest each weekend like a locust infestation is becoming increasingly impossible. As a last refuge for locals and tourists alike there are a few bars now which refuse to let stag parties in — and considering their alcohol consumption and the revenue they create, that means a lot.

3. Keep your shirt on.

Budapest has amazing hot and sunny summers. Temperatures of 35°C, without much cooling down at night, can get you sweating and soaking wet within 5 min. But that’s still not reason enough to delight us with your exposed white torso while we are trying to have lunch, dinner, or a glass of wine. You wouldn’t show up topless in a restaurant at home, would you? So please don’t do it in our home. If you are Chris Hemsworth or his lookalike, though, we can make an exception.

4. Budapest is not a brothel.

If you want to have fun, go for it. There are a few notorious bars where there’s a good chance you’ll get lucky. Mutual interest is clearly recognizable and if these kind of things are okay for you, we don’t want to spoil the fun. What is not okay is to ask women, who just happen to be standing on the sidewalk by themselves for a bit, looking at their phone, maybe waiting for someone, maybe taking a break on their way to meet friends, for their price or telling them about your state of arousal. I don’t even have words for how inappropriate this is. Just go home and never come back.

5. Your new favorite bar is beneath someone’s bedroom.

Erzsébetváros, Budapest’s 7th district, is famous for its hundreds of bars which keep the drinks flowing till the early morning hours, 7 days a week. And yes, it is an amazing place to party the night away, but your favorite party district is also someone else’s home. And like most people, the residents of the 7th district would like to sleep at night because they have a non-party life with a non-party job and they need to get up early. So next time you think it is a good idea to move from one bar to the next in a group of 10 while loudly howling all the verses of “Barbie Girl”, please do reconsider.

6. Budapest is not just a party city, it’s full of history.

With several thousand years of turbulent history and having been home to countless world-class composers, writers, scientists, and inventors, Budapest is not just a place to drink beer, but also to drown in culture and history. You should not miss out on the opportunity to explore it. Spend an evening in the opera; you will hardly get such high-class plays for such an affordable prices. Visit the House of Terror, a museum about Hungary’s fascist and communist regimes of the 20th century, a darker period of our history. Or just stroll along the streets and pay some attention to the often magnificent architecture of the historic buildings. You will never be bored.