Everything that ever ran on the news feed, kept for the record. Expired warnings stay expired; read them as history, not as plans.
Dagály's 50-metre pool is out of service for an unexpected technical fault, and the bath is not giving a date for when it reopens. The outdoor pools around it stay open only until September 13, after which entry moves to the winter ticket desk and outdoor swimming there is done for the year. If a lap swim or an outdoor dip at Dagály is part of the plan this month, check the pool's status before you go.
The operator's extraordinary information page now dates the suspension July 13 to September 30, where the same notice read July 13 to September 13 two weeks ago. Nothing on the Bend moves inside that window: Budapest to Szentendre, Budapest to Visegrád, the Visegrád hop on, Visegrád to Esztergom, the Esztergom cruise and the hydrofoil, while the daytime Budapest hop on keeps skipping the Margitsziget Sportuszoda pier. These seventeen days push the suspension through the end of the month, so anyone planning a Danube Bend trip before October should count on the train instead. The H5 HÉV from Batthyány tér is the land route to Szentendre, the Vác pier is still under repair so nothing calls there either, and the Budapest sightseeing sailings run throughout.
The Budapest police have posted temporary parking bans and one-way changes across districts I, V, IX, XI, XII and XXI, running from September 8 through September 14, tied to the World Athletics Ultimate Championship at the National Athletics Centre in Csepel (District XXI). The heaviest restrictions sit right around the venue, on Kvassay zsilip út, Nagy-Duna sor and Weiss Manfréd út in District XXI, plus riverside routes in District IX between September 10 and 14. Central-district closures are lighter: short parking bans near Apáczai Csere János utca in District V and around Krisztina körút and Múzeum körút. If you're driving or parking near the river on the Csepel or Ferencváros side, or around the Castle district, check the police notice before you set out this week.
Lukács Gyógyfürdő confirmed on its own site that the men's changing room, the private tub service and the accessible/wheelchair changing option are temporarily unavailable while renovation work is underway. No start or end date is published; the operator only says thanks for your understanding. Everything else, including the pools, saunas and the beer spa, keeps running as normal. If you or someone in your group needs the accessible changing room, check with Lukács Baths directly before you go.
Bagel King opened at Üllői út 258, in Budapest's XIX district (Kispest), baking its own bagels daily and filling them with in-house-processed meats and a build-your-own sandwich menu. It also does bagel burgers, hot sandwiches and sides, with online ordering for pickup or delivery. It's open Monday to Saturday, 10:00-19:55, closed Sundays. It's a fair way from the tourist core, so it's a stop for anyone already out that way rather than a special trip.
The closest lake and thermal combination to Budapest goes dark for four days. The operator has the whole bath shut for maintenance from Monday September 7 to Thursday the 10th, and reopens on Friday September 11 at 15:00, so a day trip inside that window arrives at a locked gate. Outside it the bath runs every day from 10:00 to 20:00 with the cash desk shutting at 18:00, and it still admits a maximum of 200 outside guests on top of its hotel guests before it closes the doors, which is why the spa asks you to phone reception on +36 22 589 971 first. The lake beach is a separate matter: a bathing ban went on this beach on July 24 after samples came back over the Enterococcus limit, so treat the water as off unless the spa tells you otherwise.
Budapest hosts the first World Athletics Ultimate Championship from Friday September 11 to Sunday September 13 at the national athletics centre on Csepel Island, renamed the Zsivotzky Gyula Nemzeti Atlétikai Központ on March 27, and the format is three sessions, one per evening: 19:00 to 22:00 on the Friday, 18:00 to 21:00 on the Saturday and the Sunday. The seller lists the same six adult prices for every session, keyed to the stand rather than to its own category numbers: 10,000 Ft in PL 5, 15,000 Ft in PL 3, 29,000 Ft in PL 2 and PL 2 Upper Level, 36,000 Ft in PL 4, 44,000 Ft in PL 1 and 69,000 Ft on the finish line. On September 3 the seller had Saturday's whole session and the three-day ticket marked unavailable, PL 3 and PL 5 gone from Friday and Sunday, and PL 1 gone from Friday as well, so Friday and Sunday were open from 29,000 Ft. The programme the organiser publishes, subject to change, puts the men's pole vault, the men's 5000m and both hurdles finals on the Friday, both 100m finals on the Saturday, and both 200m finals, the men's 1500m and the 4x400m relay on the Sunday. One session a day, starting at 18:00 or 19:00, leaves the daytime free, so this is three evenings booked rather than three days.
The 36th Budafoki Pezsgő- és Borfesztivál takes over Budafok, the city's wine quarter in District XXII, from Friday September 4 to Sunday September 6, and the historic cellars open wider than they do on the monthly cellar walk. The hours differ by square: Városház tér, the Piactér in front of the neighbourhood market and the Szieszta Pont run 17:00 to midnight on Friday and from 10:00 at the weekend, with Városház tér holding to 01:00 on Saturday night, while the Oroszlános Udvar at Leányka utca 1/B is the music and dancing site and starts at 16:00 on Friday and noon at the weekend. Wine, spritzer and sparkling wine are served in glass only, so the first purchase is the festival's own 4 dl glass at 2,200 Ft, and it is not bought back at the end. The Oroszlános Udvar carries a fire-safety headcount and security stops the entry when it is full, so go there early in the evening rather than late.
BKK expects traffic restrictions around Városház tér in District XXII from 16:00 on September 4 to 05:00 on Monday September 7, for the Budafok sparkling wine and wine festival, and the buses out there are diverted for the same weekend. The 251, 251A and 251E skip the Budafoki Szomszédok piaca stop until services start again on Monday, and on Városház tér they use the stop of the 33 bus instead. On the Friday and Saturday evenings, September 4 and 5, the 47 tram runs more often towards Móricz Zsigmond körtér, which is the way back into central Buda once the cellars shut. The 33 bus also runs more often on demand on the Saturday evening, between Budatétény vasútállomás at Campona and Savoya Park.
The Nemzeti Filmintézet has dated its ninth Budapest Classics Film Marathon: September 15 to 20, around a hundred screenings across the Uránia Nemzeti Filmszínház, the Toldi, Art+ Cinema, the French Institute, and an open-air screen at the Városháza Kertmozi on Városház utca, two minutes from Deák Ferenc tér. A ticket is 1,500 Ft to any of them, screenings held at the Magyar Nemzeti Filmarchívum are free with registration, and the one exception is opening night, the 4K restoration of the Queen concert filmed in Budapest in 1986, which plays the Uránia on September 15 for 4,900 Ft. The detail that decides whether this is for you sits in the programme: the Hungarian films are subtitled in English, so 80 huszár, Szamárköhögés and Bódy Gábor's Kutya éji dala are all watchable without a word of Hungarian, while the English-language titles carry Hungarian subtitles only. The open-air run at 20:00 every evening goes Niagara, Amélie, Szamárköhögés, Kutya éji dala, Solo Sunny and Thelma and Louise. Mathieu Kassovitz, Mohsen Makhmalbaf and Paweł Edelman are all coming in person.
The 41st Wizz Air Budapest Half Marathon runs on Sunday September 6, and the closures reach both banks, not only the Buda side the course sits on. The 21.1 km race and both relays go at 08:00 from Pázmány Péter sétány at the Buda end of Petőfi híd, the 10 km follows at 12:15, and more than ten thousand people are entered. The police list closes the Buda lower embankment from 06:00 to 13:30, the Pest lower embankment from 06:30 to 15:10, Szabadság híd and Szent Gellért tér from 08:55 to 14:00, and Pázmány Péter sétány itself from 08:00 on Saturday straight through to 21:00 on Sunday. The rolling section also takes the central road of Margitsziget and two lanes each of Árpád híd and Margit híd between 06:00 and 11:30, then Lánchíd and Clark Ádám tér between 11:00 and 14:00, so a morning on the island and a walk across the Chain Bridge both fall inside it. Come by tram 4 or 6 to the Buda end of Petőfi híd and walk about 600 metres along the promenade, or take the M4 to Móricz Zsigmond körtér and tram 4 from there, and check BudapestGO first, because routes crossing the course get diverted.
Budapest switched its decorative lighting, its fountains and the Gellért Hill waterfall off through the summer's heat and drought, to take load off the power and water systems. The mayor announced on August 30 that supply had recovered and that the city's companies return to their normal working order from September 1. The scale of what was off: suspending the whole city's decorative lighting saved close to 20 megawatt hours, and stopping the fountains saved nearly 25,000 cubic metres of water. If you booked an evening cruise or planned a night walk on the riverbank in the last few weeks, this is the difference between a dark skyline and the one the photos sell.
The new room is at Ferenciek tere 1, at the Elizabeth Bridge end of Váci utca beside the Franciscan Church, and it runs the same all-day menu as the 2021 original on Hercegprímás utca behind the Basilica. Both open 08:00 to 17:00 on weekdays and 09:00 to 17:00 at weekends, and both are walk-ins only, so there is no table to book and no point emailing ahead. Eggs Benedict on cheddar scones is 4,600 Ft, Madrid smashed eggs 4,500 Ft, an espresso 900 Ft and a flat white 1,500 Ft. The reason to pick the new one over the original is the pavement terrace under straw parasols, which is a rare thing to find one street off Váci utca.
MÁV has put the Cegléd and Debrecen main lines on a modified timetable from August 30 to November 4 while track work runs between Pilis and Albertirsa. The suburban Z50 trains moved most: from Nyugati pályaudvar they now leave at 24 past the hour, 24 to 31 minutes later than before, and reach Cegléd at 37 past, while the return leaves Cegléd at 19 past and arrives at Nyugati at 33 past, with the hourly service and the roughly half-hourly peak service kept. The long-distance trains shift less, the Napfény towards Szeged, the Cívis InterRégió and the S50 only slightly, the Békés InterCity and the international trains on the Békéscsaba line typically by 5 to 15 minutes, and the Nyírség InterCity is back at Nyugati but still runs via Újszász between Budapest and Szolnok. Between September 14 and 16 a MÁVBusz replaces two night trains between Pilis and Cegléd, so check your departure in the app rather than trusting a printed time.
The Pozsonyi Piknik takes the Újpesti rakpart on Saturday September 5, from 10:00 to 22:00, and the district puts it on for nothing: entry is free all day. Újlipótváros calls it the neighbourhood's cultural village fair rather than a festival, which is the more accurate word, so expect street theatre, small stages and stalls instead of a headline act. The children's half runs a block inland on Radnóti Miklós utca, away from the embankment crowd. It sits on the Pest bank just north of the Margit híd, which makes it an easy add to a day that already includes Margitsziget.
September 1 puts the BKK network back on its school-term timetable, the denser of the two it runs, so most lines get more departures than they had through August. The change aimed straight at visitors is bus 216: between 8:00 and 10:00 on weekdays it now leaves Deák Ferenc tér for the Buda Castle every 10 minutes instead of every 15, on higher-capacity buses, and BKK gives rising tourist numbers as the reason. Tram 1, the outer ring line, moves to a departure every 3 to 4 minutes at weekday peaks. Bus 26 to Margitsziget and trolleybus 70 through the Városliget keep the articulated vehicles they ran all summer, so the two busiest park routes stay on the bigger cars.
Budapest hands the Pest lower embankment to pedestrians every evening and right through the weekend, and the weekday handover time has just moved. From August 31 it goes car-free at 18:30 on weekdays instead of 17:00, a change City Hall ties directly to the school year starting. Weekends are untouched, so Saturday and Sunday still belong to people on foot for the whole day. City Hall also warns that cars can still be moving as the closure begins, and for about half an hour after the road reopens, which is worth knowing before you walk down the middle of it at 18:31.
Budapest Bakehouse has opened at Sütő utca 2, the short street running off Deák Ferenc tér, which puts it about a minute from where the 100E airport bus ends its run. The operator lists one set of hours for every day of the week, 8:00 to 16:00, and calls the place a soft opening rather than a finished one. The plan is two businesses at one address, a bakery and coffee shop in the morning and a Budapest-style pizza bar from the Pizza Művek family in the evening, but the pizza is still marked as coming and the 16:00 close is what actually applies. Treat it as a morning stop for pastry and coffee rather than the late slice the name suggests, and check the hours again before you build an evening around it.
The zoo sets its opening hours by month, and September is a step down from the summer band. From September 2 it opens at 9:00 and closes at 17:30 Monday to Friday, and at 18:00 at weekends and on public holidays, against 18:00 and 19:00 through May to August. Last entry stays one hour before closing, which is the number that catches people out: arrive at 16:45 on a September Saturday and you are in, arrive at 16:45 on a September Tuesday and the gate has already stopped letting people through. The animal houses shut earlier again, at 17:00 on weekdays and 17:30 at weekends, so the indoor collections are the first thing you lose by turning up late in the day.
BKK says road traffic could start crossing the renewed northern overpass at Flórián tér toward Szentendrei út at dawn on Sunday August 30, which closes the full renovation of the two bridges linking Szentendrei út with Árpád híd. The work began on March 1, 2025 with the southern overpass, which came back in November, and the northern one has been the bottleneck on the way out of Óbuda ever since. It is not finished ground: minor repairs and the rebuilding of the surface junction, including the removal of the temporary layout, are expected to run to about September 17, and the bus priority lanes on Szentendrei út and Pacsirtamező utca stay as they are. If you are driving north to Szentendre or the Danube Bend, the overpass is the part that got easier, not the square underneath it.
HungaroMet's Siófok storm observatory raised a second-degree warning on all three Balaton basins at 06:36 on Saturday morning: the western one from Keszthely to the Badacsony-Fonyód line, the middle one between Fonyód and Tihany, and the eastern one past the Tihany peninsula. Second degree is the upper step of the scale and warns of gusts above 60 km/h, and it is the one that shuts the water down: the lamps along the shore flash ninety times a minute, swimming is prohibited, and boats and water sports craft stay in, sailing boats excepted. The milder first degree only pushes swimmers back inside five hundred metres of the shore, so today is a different order of day out. The observatory issues these half an hour to an hour and a half before the wind arrives and drops them once it has passed, and the three basins can carry different degrees at the same time, so read the live page rather than the forecast before you write the trip off.
The Budapesti Zsidó Hitközség runs its 28th festival from August 30 to September 10, and the part that matters for a visitor is where it happens: the concerts are inside the synagogues themselves, not in a hall down the road. The Dohány utcai zsinagóga takes the big nights, with the Avishai Cohen Trio, a Budapest-Pozsony klezmer summit alongside Molnár Piroska, and Gipsy Kings by Diego Baliardo. The Rumbach utcai zsinagóga, the Hegedűs Gyula utcai zsinagóga over in District XIII and the Frankel Leó úti zsinagóga on the Buda side carry the rest, with Frankel Leó getting the premiere of Lisztes Jenő's klezmer rhapsody, while the Goldmark terem and the Bálint Ház fill in around them and one night runs down in the Pécsi zsinagóga. Tickets go through Broadway Jegyiroda, and a concert seat is a different ticket from the daytime Dohány tour, so book the two separately if you want both.
The tenth edition takes the square from Tuesday September 1 to Sunday September 6, with more than 250 beers from Hungarian craft brewers and international importers, food trucks and music. Entry costs nothing, which is exactly where visitors get caught: nobody pours for you until you have bought a festival glass, 4,999 Ft for the premium or 5,999 Ft for the exclusive, and the festival site says nothing about taking it back at the end. It runs 12:00 to midnight on Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday, and 12:00 to 02:00 from Thursday to Saturday. Szabadság tér sits just north of the Basilica and the nearest stop is Arany János utca on the M3, so this is one you can drop into for an hour without building the day around it.
The operator's extraordinary information page now dates the suspension July 13 to September 13, where the same notice read July 13 to August 31 last weekend, and the wording has hardened from low water to extreme low water. Nothing on the Bend moves inside that window: Budapest to Szentendre, Budapest to Visegrád, the Visegrád hop on, Visegrád to Esztergom, the Esztergom cruise and the hydrofoil, while the daytime Budapest hop on keeps skipping the Margitsziget Sportuszoda pier. These thirteen days cost more than the last extension did, because they take out September up to the 13th instead of a week the schedule had left largely empty. The H5 HÉV from Batthyány tér is the land route to Szentendre, the Vác pier is under repair so nothing calls there either, and the Budapest sightseeing sailings run throughout.
HungaroMet's Siófok observatory put all three basins back on base at 13:44, seven hours after the second degree it raised at 06:36. Base means the storm signal restricts nothing: the swimming ban is lifted and craft can go back out, though local beach, harbour and water quality rules are separate and still apply, and the shore lamps are dark. The thunderstorm risk HungaroMet still flags for Saturday sits over the southern and eastern parts of the country rather than over the lake. Signals go up half an hour to ninety minutes before the wind arrives and come down once it has passed, so the live page is the thing to read before you drive out.
Hősök tere gets a full symphony orchestra on Saturday September 12 at 18:30, and admission is free. Iván Fischer conducts the Budapest Festival Orchestra through Schubert's Unfinished symphony, a short early Arvo Pärt piece sung in Estonian by the orchestra's newly formed children's choir, and a selection from Prokofiev's two Cinderella suites. The orchestra puts the evening at about 90 minutes. It is programmed as a family concert, on a Saturday evening, on the biggest ceremonial square in the city, which in practice means turning up well before 18:30 if you want to be anywhere near the front.
The operator has moved its own dates on Margitsziget. The wave pool at Palatinus, which the closing list had ending with August, now runs to Sunday September 6; the leisure pool and the outdoor children's pool go a week later on September 13; and the Margaréta pool holds to September 27, which makes it the last outdoor swim on the island. The strand pool, the slide pool, both outdoor thermal pools, and the outdoor teaching, sitting and swimming pools all carry no closing date at all, and neither do the indoor pools or the saunas, so most of the bath is not going anywhere when the wave pool closes today.
Rudas has posted a renovation window: between September 2 and September 13 the shower in the thermal section does not work. The same notice also has the salt room out of service, and unlike the shower that one carries no end date. Nothing in the notice touches the pools, so the Ottoman octagon and the rest of the wing run to their normal schedule. It is a small closure that lands awkwardly, because the house rules ask you to rinse before getting in and the thermal wing is what most visitors come for. The bath also remains closed to wheelchair users for technical reasons, and that notice is still up.
The open-air strand season ends on Sunday, and Pesterzsébeti fürdő spends Saturday August 29 seeing it off. The wave pool runs aqua salsa at 11:00 and 14:00 with aqua fitness at 13:00, the children's pool has games from 10:00 to 17:00, and the swimming pool holds a diving contest at 10:00 for the best dive and 10:30 for the trickiest, with sign-up at the cash desk on the day. The evening is the part worth staying for: belly dancing at 17:30 and 19:30, AKAN és a firkás on stage at 18:00 and a fire juggling show at 20:00. This is District XX rather than the tourist centre, so budget the travel time, and the operator reserves the right to change the programme.
The city bath operator runs a rotating late shift, so one thermal bath is open until 22:00 on every day of the week: Rudas on Monday, Lukács on Tuesday, Csillaghegy on Wednesday, Dandár on Thursday, Széchenyi on Friday, Pesterzsébet on Saturday and Paskál on Sunday. Széchenyi's own timetable puts Friday at 7:00 to 22:00 against 7:00 to 20:00 on the other weekdays, so the rotation is real and not a leftover summer banner. Most people plan the evening on the assumption that the big baths shut at 20:00, which is exactly why the last two hours tend to be the emptiest water of the day. Check the bath you are heading to before you cross town, because individual services inside a bath can close earlier than the building.
ARC is the biggest open-air poster exhibition in the country, and the 26th edition opens on September 18 at the Buda bridgehead of Petőfi híd, on the BME car park on Egry József utca. This year's theme is IDEGRENDSZERVÁLTÁS, a pun that folds regime change into the nervous system, and the works are billboard-format images that anyone could submit. It is outdoors, free and open around the clock, so it slots into a walk along the Buda embankment instead of costing you an afternoon. It runs to October 18.
Rudas has posted a renovation window: between September 2 and September 28 the shower in the thermal section does not work. The same notice also has the salt room out of service, and unlike the shower that one carries no end date. Nothing in the notice touches the pools, so the Ottoman octagon and the rest of the wing run to their normal schedule. The closure lands awkwardly, because the house rules ask you to rinse before getting in and the thermal wing is what most visitors come for. The bath also remains closed to wheelchair users for technical reasons, and that notice is still up.
August 30 is the line the operators drew. Római Strand and Pünkösdfürdői Strand are open to that Sunday and then shut for the year, which takes the two biggest cheap swimming days out of the city in one weekend. Csillaghegy expects to close its outdoor children's pool the same day and keep the strand pool running to September 13. On Margitsziget, Palatinus loses the slide pool, the strand pool and both outdoor thermal pools after the 30th, though its wave pool now runs on to September 6 and its indoor block and saunas carry on. What survives September in the open air is thin: the Csillaghegy strand pool, the Palatinus wave pool to September 6 and Margaréta pool to September 27, and the Széchenyi outdoor trio until its own maintenance rota starts on September 7. If an outdoor swim is on your list, this weekend is the one.
The Zoo is not the only place staying up on Friday. The Tropicarium out at Campona runs its own Night of the Zoos on August 28, 18:00 to 22:30, dressed as a Caribbean summer close: cocktails, a mermaid dive in the ray touch pool, and keepers pulling apart the facts and the myths about the animals they work with. The catch is the same one the Zoo has, and it is sharper here. Normal opening is 10:00 to 18:00, the last normal-ticket guests are let in at 16:00, and after that only the event ticket works. Early Bird online is 4,950 Ft in limited numbers, on the door it is 5,950 Ft, an existing Fast Pass covers the evening, and discount coupons and cards are not accepted that night. First hundred through the door get a drink coupon. One practical thing the flyer buries: the Tesco underground garage shuts at 22:00, half an hour before the programme ends, so park on the surface.
Maintenance shortens both Grand Boulevard trams on Saturday August 29 and Sunday August 30: the 4 turns back at Jászai Mari tér coming from Újbuda-központ, the 6 does the same from Móricz Zsigmond körtér, and neither crosses Margit híd. A replacement bus signed 4-6 runs between Széll Kálmán tér and Nyugati pályaudvar, while buses 91, 191, 291 and 931 drop onto the roadway along Margit körút and the bridge and share its stop at Margit híd, budai hídfő. The Pest side of the ring keeps its trams all the way to Jászai Mari tér, so Boráros, Blaha, Oktogon and Nyugati are untouched; what goes is the stop out on Margaret Island and the run up to Széll Kálmán tér. Tram 17 keeps its normal timetable, and BKK tells anyone around Széll Kálmán tér or coming off the H5 HÉV to take the M2 into the centre, which is worth knowing this particular weekend because the H5 itself terminates at Békásmegyer until Sunday night.
If Saturday evening was going to be the Lánchíd and a walk up to the Castle, the Generali Night Run is on the same ground. The race centre sits on the Műegyetem rakpart and the day opens at 08:00, when the half marathon leaves the Buda lower embankment for two laps over the Lánchíd to Széchenyi István tér, Eötvös tér and the Pest lower embankment, turning at the Parliament visitor centre. Between 10:30 and 13:30 the Danube swim goes off the Salkaházi Sára rakpart. The evening runs start at 20:30 over 5 km, then 11 km at 21:50 and a headlamp 11 km at 22:10, all leaving the lower embankment and all climbing Hunyadi János út to Dísz tér and Palota út, dropping down Váralja utca and through the Alagút, then crossing the Lánchíd twice. A 17.3 km Night Bike ride follows the same loop and the field is capped at 4,000.
Sólet is the slow bean and smoked meat pot that Jewish Budapest cooks for Saturday, and on Sunday August 30 the Városháza park gets four of them side by side. The tenth Sóletfesztivál opens at 11:00 with a Hungarian, an Israeli, a street food and a Hegyalja version, each with its own cook: Cserháti Tamara, Csonka András, Lantos Lili and Myers Tzivia. The organiser prices entry at 0 Ft. The park runs off the Károly körút between Deák Ferenc tér and the Gerlóczy utca, which puts it a few minutes from the M1, M2 and M3 interchange, and the Jewish Cultural Festival opens the same day across the city's synagogues.
Aura Bay opened on 17 July on Óbuda Island: eight indoor rooms and a 5,700 m² outdoor light garden, 258,000 LED points, with a 360-degree domed room as the finale. Entry is by time slot and the slot only fixes when you walk in, not how long you stay. The practical catch: the garden is open from 16:00, but the installations only show properly after dusk, which is why the 16:00-19:30 day slots are cheaper (adults 4,000 Ft plus a 10 percent booking fee online, 5,000 Ft at the gate) than the 19:30-22:00 evening ones (5,000 Ft plus fee online, 5,600 at the gate). Children, students and seniors pay 3,000/3,300 Ft plus fee depending on the slot. Runs through 31 December.
The team behind the Hachi restaurants opened a dessert-only spot on 23 July at Zrínyi utca 12, two streets from St. Stephen's Basilica. Hachi Deza does the wobbly Japanese fluffy pancakes in rotating flavours, glass-cup desserts, fruit-and-cream milk-bread sandwiches and a short list of creative drinks. It is still running itself in quietly, so expect the menu to shift and the queue to form on weekend afternoons; the pancakes are made to order and were never a grab-and-go dessert anywhere on earth.
Late-night food near the Basilica usually means settling. Forni di Napoli is the exception: the Bazilika branch at Október 6. utca 19 runs daily from noon to midnight with the kitchen open until 23:00, which makes it one of the few real plates in the quarter after the dinner rush dies. The pizzeria's own wall of titles includes European Champion Pizzeria 2026 and a fourth place at the 2026 world championship, and the menu is strict Neapolitan pizza plus fresh pasta rather than a bit of everything. A second branch sits at Szent István körút 7-9 if you are on the Nagykörút instead. It shares the street with Tonichi, the ramen shop two doors down, so Október 6. utca is quietly becoming the food street nobody markets.
The Gordon Ramsay Bar & Grill that opened on 31 July at the Dorothea Hotel, Dorottya utca 2, is the brand's first restaurant in Central and Eastern Europe, a few steps off Vörösmarty tér. The operator's own page lists daily breakfast 06:00-11:00, lunch 12:00-15:00, dinner 18:00-23:00 and the bar until 01:00, which quietly makes it one of the few high-end rooms in the city serving a real breakfast from six. The menu runs the brand's grill canon, Beef Wellington included, with Hungarian touches. Two practical notes the booking page implies and the opening weeks confirmed: reserve ahead, because the first days sold out fast, and dress for it, because elegant attire is stated policy, not a suggestion.
The operator's pool list has the 40 degree hot plunge and the 35 degree brick pool down for maintenance from August 25 to August 28, and both sit in the steam block rather than out in the sun, so the loss lands on the quiet indoor circuit most visitors never reach. Everything else is listed as running: the three outdoor pools, the whole thermal block, the medical pools and all ten saunas. Entry costs the same this week as any other, because Széchenyi does not discount for a pool being out. If the hot plunge was the plan, Lukács has one at the same heat and a fraction of the crowd.
The famous part of Széchenyi is the courtyard, and the operator has now dated the maintenance on all three of its pools. The leisure pool with the whirlpool goes first, out September 7 to 18. The 38 degree thermal pool, the one in every photograph, is out September 21 to October 2. The lap pool follows October 5 to 16. They never overlap, so the courtyard is never empty and you always have two of the three, but a September trip built around the whirlpool or an October one built around lengths needs the dates checked first. The indoor thermal pools, the medical pools and the saunas run throughout, but the indoor swimming pool is its own closure and is out from September 1 to 18.
The operator has put closing dates on the outdoor half of Palatinus, and the first wave takes the best of it. August 30 is the last day for the wave pool, the slide pool, the strand pool and both outdoor thermal pools. The outdoor children's pool and the adventure pool run to September 13, and the Margaréta pool holds out to September 27. What survives the season is the indoor block: the children's pool, the cold plunge, the 40 to 42 degree hot plunge and the medical pool, plus the steam cabin, the aroma sauna and the Finnish sauna. The orange slide is still listed as out of order, so the slide tower loses one either way. A Margitsziget trip after August 30 is a different bath from the one in the photographs.
The operator's live service lists put the saunas back in business. Palatinus shows its steam cabin at 40 to 50 degrees, the aroma sauna at 50 to 60 and the Finnish sauna at 90 to 100. Széchenyi lists all ten of its chambers, from the Volcano sauna to the salt room. The August notice that suspended every electrically heated sauna and steam chamber, at Csillaghegy, Dandár, Palatinus, Paskál, Pesterzsébeti, Pünkösdfürdő and Római, set its own window at ten days from August 2, and none of those baths now posts a sauna suspension. One change did outlast the cuts and is permanent: Paskál is converting its geothermal sauna into a salt inhalatorium, and that service is gone for good.
Planned maintenance keeps the M4 between Keleti pályaudvar and Szent Gellért tér – Műegyetem until 12:00 on Sunday August 30, so the western tail of the line is off. Trams 19 and 49 reach Kelenföld vasútállomás instead and the 49 runs more often that morning, with tram 1 as the other way across. If you are coming in by train, BKK's own advice is to stay on past Kelenföld to Déli pályaudvar and take the M2 into the center. The Gellért is not affected: Szent Gellért tér is the last station the metro still serves.
Maintenance takes the H5 off its northern half from Thursday August 27 to Sunday August 30, so the train terminates at Békásmegyer and buses cover the rest. Three of them run: H5 to Szentendre calling everywhere, H5A to Pomáz, and H5E straight to Szentendre with Szentistvántelep and Pomáz skipped. Take the H5E if Szentendre is the whole plan, because it is the one that does not stop for the commuter villages. Regional buses 855, 856, 860, 861 and 862 also cover the Pomáz to Békásmegyer stretch, and your HÉV ticket is valid on them between Pomáz H and Békásmegyer H.
The operator has put closing dates on the outdoor half of Palatinus, and the first wave takes the best of it. August 30 is the last day for the wave pool, the slide pool, the strand pool and both outdoor thermal pools. The outdoor children's pool and the adventure pool run to September 13, and the Margaréta pool holds out to September 27. What survives the season is the indoor block: the children's pool, the cold plunge, the 40 to 42 degree hot plunge and the medical pool, plus the steam cabin, the aroma sauna and the Finnish sauna. The orange slide is still listed as out of order, so the slide tower loses one either way. A Margitsziget trip after August 30 is a different bath from the one in the photographs.
The operator's pool list has the 40 degree hot plunge and the 35 degree brick pool down for maintenance from August 25 to August 29, and both sit in the steam block rather than out in the sun, so the loss lands on the quiet indoor circuit most visitors never reach. Everything else is listed as running: the three outdoor pools, the whole thermal block, the medical pools and all ten saunas. Entry costs the same this week as any other, because Széchenyi does not discount for a pool being out. If the hot plunge was the plan, Lukács has one at the same heat and a fraction of the crowd.
The operator's extraordinary information page now dates the low water suspension July 13 to August 31, where the same notice read July 13 to August 23 yesterday. Everything on the Bend stays tied up in that window: Budapest to Szentendre, Budapest to Visegrád, the Visegrád hop on, Visegrád to Esztergom, the Esztergom cruise and the hydrofoil, with the daytime Budapest hop on still skipping the Margitsziget Sportuszoda pier. The hydrofoil runs in weekend blocks and its next one is September 18 to 20, so the eight extra days take out nothing that was scheduled. The H5 HÉV from Batthyány tér is the way to Szentendre by land, though from August 27 to 30 it runs only as far as Békásmegyer and replacement buses cover the rest, and the Budapest sightseeing sailings have gone throughout.
The August 20 closures have finished unwinding on the river. The Pest lower embankment between Margaret Bridge and Március 15. tér reopened at 06:00 this morning, the last one to go, after the Buda lower embankment, the Műegyetem rakpart, Lánchíd utca and the Várkert rakpart came back over the weekend. Two things still bite: bus 16 does not run at all until August 25, so the way up from Széll Kálmán tér is the 16A or the 116, and both of those reach Szentháromság tér again on August 24 and 25 after four days of turning back at Bécsi kapu tér. Restrictions inside the Buda Castle district run to August 25 as well, and the 216 leaves from Deák Ferenc tér.
The Lukács notice grew a third line. Renovation work has taken out the men's changing room, the private tub service and now the accessible changing facility, and only the last two reach the English page, so a man reading in English still arrives without knowing his changing room is shut. Rudas has been the other way for weeks: its own notice says guests with reduced mobility cannot use the bath at all, for technical reasons. Neither operator gives a reopening date, and with Gellért closed until 2028 that is three of the historic baths a wheelchair user cannot plan around right now. Read the Hungarian page before you book, because it carries notices the English one does not.
The Fővárosi Állat- és Növénykert opens its gates at 19:00 on Friday August 28 for Állatkertek Éjszakája, the Night of the Zoos, and keeps them open until midnight. This is a separate ticket rather than an extension of the day: 8,000 Ft from 14 years up, 5,500 Ft from 2 to 14, 400 Ft under two, and neither a day ticket nor an annual pass gets you through the gate. The cash desks and the entrance both shut at 21:30, so a late dinner first is the wrong plan. The theme this year is which animal stories are true and which are not, run by the keepers: tigers fed at 19:30, lions and giant otters at 20:00, and a staged tropical downpour in the Palm House at 21:30.
Bartók Feszt takes over the strip between the Műegyetem rakpart, Szent Gellért tér, the Budafoki út and the BME garden on Saturday August 29, from 09:00 until 01:00 the following morning, and every programme on it is free. You walk in from Szent Gellért tér or from the Budafoki út, which puts the M4, trams 19, 41, 47, 48, 49, 56 and 56A and buses 7 and 133E at the door, so it is the least effort of any big festival in the city to reach. The civil quarter alone runs close to forty things between 09:00 and 19:00, and a few of the workshops want you registered in advance. From August 24 the same organisers run a smaller warm up week called Belépő in the neighbourhood, and they flag closures across the site between August 28 and 30, which is worth knowing if you were counting on parking near the Gellért.
The low water notice that has kept the Budapest to Szentendre and Budapest to Visegrád boats, the Visegrád hop on, the Visegrád to Esztergom leg, the Esztergom cruise and the hydrofoil tied up since July 13 is dated to run to August 23. Nothing on the operator's pages says what happens from August 24, and the Budapest to Szentendre page still carries its own line that the route is not running on low water, next to a summer timetable printed through August 30. Look at the operator on the morning you want to go rather than the night before, because those two pages have to agree before the boat means anything. If it is still off, the H5 HÉV from Batthyány tér reaches Szentendre whatever the river is doing.
The bath operator switched off every electrically heated sauna and steam chamber for the whole opening day from August 2, and its notice names the baths that lose them: Csillaghegy, Dandár, Palatinus, Paskál, Pesterzsébeti, Pünkösdfürdő and Római. Széchenyi, Lukács and Rudas heat their hot-air chambers and steam cabins with gas, and the same notice says those stay usable unchanged. Palatinus gives up more than the sauna: its wave pool stops after 17:00 and runs half as long across the day, and every bath in the group pauses its high-draw attractions after 17:00. The notice put the measures at roughly ten days from August 2 and the operator has published nothing since, so ask at the desk before you pay if the sauna is the point of the trip.
MAHART runs the Budapest hydrofoil in weekend blocks, and the published timetable jumps from today straight to September 18 to 20: out of Budapest at 09:30, Vác 10:10, Visegrád 10:30, Esztergom 11:00, then back from Esztergom at 16:30 and into Budapest at 18:00. The excursion boats do not cover the gap, because the Budapest to Szentendre page, the Visegrád page and the Esztergom page all carry the same line about the low Danube stopping them. That leaves no scheduled MAHART sailing to the Danube Bend between Monday and September 17, so a day up there is a land trip for the next three weeks. If you are booking the September date, tickets are advance only because the boat is small, and there is no ticket desk at Vác or Visegrád to buy from on the day.
The holiday closures around the Buda Castle are unwinding in stages, and the buses up the hill are the part that catches people out. Bus 16 does not run at all between August 15 and 25, so the way up from Széll Kálmán tér is the 16A or the 116, and until August 23 both of those stop at Bécsi kapu tér instead of carrying on to Szentháromság tér. On August 24 and 25 they run to Szentháromság tér again. The 216 departs from Deák Ferenc tér once more, and down at the river trams 19 and 41 stay on diverted routes until Sunday morning, with Lánchíd utca and the Várkert rakpart shut until 16:00 on August 23.
Rudas has been coed since August 3 and that stops on August 23. From Monday August 24 the Turkish bath returns to its split week: men on Monday, Thursday and Friday from 6:00 to 10:45 and all of Wednesday until 20:00, women all of Tuesday until 20:00, and coed from 11:00 on Monday, Thursday and Friday plus both weekend days. Tuesday and Wednesday are the ones to watch, because the Turkish bath belongs to one sex for the whole day and the wrong day leaves you with the wellness wing and the saunas. The split week also brings back the ticket that covers the Turkish bath alone, 8,000 Ft on Monday, Thursday and Friday before 10:45, against 12,000 Ft for the all zone ticket from Monday to Thursday.
BKK extends the 81 trolleybus on August 31, and the new end of the line is the part worth knowing. Nothing changes between Örs vezér tere and Kassai tér. After that it carries on along Erzsébet királyné útja, past Mexikói út M and through the newly wired zoo curve onto Állatkerti körút, finishing at Dózsa György út M on the M3. Állatkerti körút is the address of the Zoo, the Capital Circus and the Széchenyi bath, with the Heroes' Square museums at the end of it, so all of that comes off the eastern terminus of the M2 without a change. The M1 is still reachable at Mexikói út, and there is a new interchange with tram 1 at the Erzsébet királyné útja underpass stop. It runs every day, on the hours it keeps now, with low floor air conditioned vehicles.
The Danube has been too low for the Bend since July 13. The operator's notice lists what that takes out: Budapest to Szentendre, Budapest to Visegrád, the Visegrád hop on, Visegrád to Esztergom, the Esztergom cruise and the hydrofoil, none of them running, with the daytime Budapest hop on skipping the Margitsziget Sportuszoda pier on top. That notice is dated July 13 to August 23, while the Budapest to Szentendre page still carries the not running line and prints its summer timetable through August 30, with adult fares of 5,000 Ft one way and 7,000 Ft return. The Budapest sightseeing sailings have gone throughout. Read the operator before you build a day around the boat, and keep in mind that the H5 HEV from Batthyány tér reaches Szentendre whatever the river is doing.
For a week the Chain Bridge belonged to people on foot, roadway and all, and that ends at 12:00 on August 21. Until noon you can still walk straight down the middle, the one stretch of the year that photo works without a bus in it. The sidewalk has been shut the whole time, so the two swap back: cars to the roadway, walkers to the sidewalk. The buses follow, with the 105, 210, 210B and 910 dropping the Elizabeth Bridge detour, and from the afternoon the 216 starts from Deak Ferenc ter again.
Tram 2 is the ride worth taking for the Danube views, and today it skips the best part of it. On August 21 the 2 and the 23 run all day between their southern terminus and Március 15. tér, the stop beside the Elizabeth Bridge, so nothing north of there is served. That cuts the run past Parliament and up to Jaszai Mari ter, which is the reason most people get on in the first place. The 2B is trimmed the same way, from Pesterzsebet to Március 15. tér, so the whole line is short today.
August 20 is done but the closures around it are not. The Pest lower embankment between Margaret Bridge and Március 15. tér stays shut until 6:00 on August 24, and the Buda lower embankment between the Rákóczi Bridge and Margaret Bridge until 22:00 on August 22. The Várkert rakpart and Lánchíd utca, the road under the Castle, reopen at 16:00 on August 23, and the Műegyetem rakpart at 20:00 on August 22. Restrictions in the Buda Castle district itself run to August 25, so a taxi to a Castle hotel or a riverside table will be taking the long way round for a few more days.
Fény utcai piac is the everyday Buda market by Széll Kálmán tér, the one locals use for vegetables and a coffee rather than for photographs, and on Sunday August 23 it fills up with close to 100 Hungarian designers and makers bringing their newest work. It runs for that one day. This is the useful version of souvenir shopping: pieces made here, sold by the people who made them, in a building most visitors walk past on the way to the Castle bus. The market publishes no start time and no entry price for the day, so treat it as a market-hours drop-in rather than something to book around, and go early if you want the pick of it.
Andrássy út hits 150, and the two weeks from August 24 to September 6 are being filled with free programs along it. The part worth walking for needs no booking: the avenue's historical street signs go back up in their original spots for a few weeks, so it reads as Sugár út, Sztálin út, Magyar Ifjúság útja and Népköztársaság útja again, which is most of the twentieth century written on one street. A free treasure hunt runs the full fortnight too, with the starter pack handed out at Eötvös10 on Eötvös utca 10 and at the Millennium Underground Museum under Erzsébet tér. Several of the guided walks are already fully booked, so take the signs and the hunt instead.
HungaroMet reissued its warnings at 05:58 on August 20 and Pest county, the area that wraps around Budapest, now carries no warning of any kind. The level 1 thunderstorm grade that stood over the holiday the day before is gone, and so is every other county on the map, with nothing in force anywhere in the country this morning. The service's national text still puts a rise in thunderstorm probability from the afternoon over the northern and northwestern edge of Transdanubia, west of the city, and names Slovakia as the likely centre of the activity. The show on the river starts at 21:00 and the forecasters update again during the day, so this is a better starting point than yesterday rather than a promise.
BKK's day-of plan, updated on August 18, closes the crossings in stages rather than all at once. Margaret Bridge loses cars from 16:00, BKK trams cross until 19:00, and from 19:00 it closes to everyone, walkers included, along with the southern exit from Margaret Island. The Chain Bridge has been a walking deck since August 15, but from 19:00 it closes to pedestrians too, and it opens again for walking straight after the fireworks. Elizabeth Bridge closes to road traffic from about 19:00 but stays open on foot: BKK says walkers can use both the pavements and the roadway. Road traffic on Liberty Bridge and the Szent Gellert embankment may be restricted as well. The organiser is pointing everyone at the Buda bank for the best view, so cross early, and if the show catches you on the wrong side, Elizabeth Bridge is the one crossing left to walkers.
The Szent Jobb kormenet is the piece of August 20 that stops traffic in the middle of Pest. The relic is the mummified right hand of the first Hungarian king, carried through the inner streets after the mass held in front of St Stephen's Basilica, and the official programme puts the procession between 18:00 and 20:00 on Szent Istvan ter. For it, BKK closes Jozsef Attila utca and the streets around the Basilica from 16:00 until 23:00. If the Basilica was on the list for Thursday afternoon, go in the morning, or stay for the procession and let it be the afternoon.
Twenty one bakeries, a handful of mills and a row of craft food stalls take over the Alfoldi Mezovaros quarter of the open air museum at Szentendre on August 20, from 9:00 to 17:00, and entry costs nothing. The museum runs free Kenyerlelke shuttle buses from the Volanbusz station at the Szentendre HEV terminus, the first at 8:45 and then roughly every fifteen minutes, with the last one back at 17:30. Four gates open at 9:00 and staff count everyone in, so the earlier train is the better train. Part of the museum is shut for building work at the moment, which matters less on a day when the point is the bread.
The organiser published the running order on August 20: the 32 minute show called Chapters from a Thousand Years of the Hungarian Nation starts at 21:00, with projections on Parliament, the Chain Bridge and several buildings on the Pest embankment, and about 2,000 drones over the water. It runs again from 22:00 to 22:30 without the fireworks, the drones or the anthem, and from 22:30 until 01:00 the light painting simply stays on Parliament and the Chain Bridge. The organiser puts the best view on the Buda bank between the Chain Bridge and Margaret Bridge, because the projections face that way. If the 21:00 crush is not your evening, the late window is the same buildings with a fraction of the crowd.
BKK is holding the metro lines open past their usual last trains on August 20: M2, M3 and M4 carry passengers until roughly 02:30, laid on for the crowds at Kossuth ter, the Muegyetem embankment and Margaret Island. The 6 tram on the Grand Boulevard runs more often all night, bus 26 across Margaret Island keeps going until about 02:00, and the night lines through the centre are being adjusted to the expected crowd. Trams, metros and the main bus routes into the centre all get extra services in the late afternoon and after the show, with more departures on suburban lines feeding them. With the bridges shut from 19:00, the lines that run under the river are the ones still crossing it, and the metro is what BKK is telling people to use.
HungaroMet put out a new warning forecast at 10:30 on Friday morning, valid until midnight on Saturday, which reverses what this item said earlier in the day. Storms, some of them severe, are most likely over Transdanubia through the afternoon, with a lower chance over the Northern Great Plain and the northern hills, moving northeast with gusts of 60 to 80 km/h and hail, and locally gusts of 90 to 100 km/h, hail over 2 cm and downpours over 25 to 30 mm. The risk drops late in the evening before a weaker band of showers comes in from the west. The Balaton half matters most for a day trip: all three basins and Lake Velence carry a first degree storm signal. Saturday a cold front crosses the country and the heat finally breaks.
The August 20 programme opens tonight, a day before the holiday itself, and the loudest part of it costs nothing. The Muegyetem rakpart runs an electronic festival from 17:00 until about half past one in the morning, with Carl Craig on from 20:00 to 22:00 and Nina Kraviz from 22:00 to midnight. Every programme in the four day series is free and needs no ticket, but each site has a capacity limit set by the authorities and entry pauses once it fills. The organiser tells you to turn up an hour before the set you came for, and the same stage runs again on August 20 from 16:00.
That early close was the holiday itself and nothing after it. From August 21 to 23 Rudas runs its ordinary weekend hours instead, which is the operator's rule for every public holiday and rest day. Worth knowing on a Friday: weekend hours mean the Turkish bath is coed from 06:00 rather than from 11:00.
The show on the evening of August 20 is built on a 1.5 kilometre stretch of the Danube between Margaret Bridge and the Chain Bridge, and the ten minute fireworks that close it are fired from three barges on that water. That geometry is the reason the organiser now points people at the Buda bank and calls the spots further south, the ones that used to be the popular choice, the weaker pick this year. It gives the Buda lower embankment as the closest good option, then ten higher ones: Batthyany ter straight across from Parliament, the Castle, Fishermen's Bastion, Gul Baba's tomb, the Buda end of Margaret Bridge, Varkert Bazar, the Philosophers' Garden on Gellert Hill, the Citadella, Harmashatar-hegy and the Janos-hegy lookout terrace. The show starts at 21:00 and the fireworks are the last ten minutes of it.
The organiser has published the August 20 music programme and it runs on three sites into the early hours. On Muegyetem rakpart the embankment stage takes DJ Reload at 17:00 and Christian Loffler at 20:00, then Modeselektor after the evening show and LavaLava to close, while Margaret Island runs Beats Sziget from 16:00 with Deva, Random Trip at 17:30 on an LGT tribute block, Boban Markovic Orkestar at 19:00 and Quimby after the show. Kossuth ter becomes a dance floor called Diszkoter the moment the show ends, with Anima Sound System on an audiovisual set and guests the organiser is not naming yet, and it points out that the light show and the fireworks are visible from the square itself. The FAQ calls the Margaret Island series and the embankment festival free and two days long each, which is the part worth building the evening around.
The Budapest Wine Festival runs September 9 to 12 on the Buda Castle terraces, and this year it has added an Explorer day ticket at 4,450 Ft, half what the day ticket costs at the gate. The two catches are worth knowing before you buy: you have to walk in between opening and 17:00, and once you leave you cannot come back in on that wristband, where the ordinary day ticket lets you in and out all day. It is sold online only and the latest you can buy it is midnight on the day before you go. If you would rather have the full run of the day, the advance day ticket is 7,900 Ft on Wednesday or Thursday and 8,900 Ft on Friday or Saturday until August 23, and each goes up by 1,000 Ft after that. The four day pass is 15,900 Ft instead of 16,900 Ft on the same deadline.
For technical reasons Rudas cannot currently take guests with disabilities, and the bath gives no end date and names no alternative. The women's shower area by the swimming pool is shut for the same reason. The timing is what makes this worth catching now: August 20 to 23 is a four day holiday weekend, it is when a lot of trips spend their one bath afternoon, and Rudas draws extra interest while the Turkish bath runs coed until August 23. If step free access decides where you go, call the bath before you build a day around it.
The wave pool is running again, so the thing this place is named for works for the long weekend. Going the other way is the slide tower, where the yellow and the orange slide are both out for technical reasons and no restart date is attached to either. Everything else is open: the thermal pools, the 26 degree swimming pool, the three saunas and the slide pool at the foot of the tower. Entry costs the same whether those two slides run or not, so it is worth knowing before you pay rather than after.
The operator's notice names a single casualty on the slide tower: the orange slide, out for technical reasons with no restart date attached. The yellow slide, listed beside it earlier this month, is off that notice. The slide notice flags nothing else, so the thermal pools, the 26 degree swimming pool and the slide pool at the foot of the tower are not listed as out. The saunas and the waves sit in a different notice: the operator's August energy measures suspend the electrically heated saunas at Palatinus for the whole opening day, stop the wave pool after 17:00 and halve how long the waves run across the day. Entry costs the same whether the orange slide runs or not, and the bath is open 09:00 to 19:00 every day of the week.
Széchenyi counts August 20 to 23 as peak days and opens at 8:00 on each of them. On the Thursday and the Friday that is an hour later than the usual 7:00 start, and those are the two days the country has off, so the bath loses its quietest hour exactly when most people are free to use it. Saturday and Sunday already opened at 8:00, so nothing changes there. The cash desk at the steam entrance still shuts at 19:00, and at 21:00 on the Friday, which is the other end of the day worth planning around. One more thing goes with the holiday block: the drinking well is closed from August 20 to 23, so the thermal water cure is off for the same four days.
The H8 HEV from Ors vezer tere is how most people reach Godollo and its royal palace, and BKK has the line in pieces until August 19 while it works at several points along it. On Saturday August 15 and Sunday August 16 the trains turn back at Cinkota. On the weekdays either side, August 13 and 14 and then August 17 to 19, they get as far as Kistarcsa. From whichever of those the trains stop at, a replacement bus badged H8 carries on to Godollo via Mogyorod, and the H8E does the same run without calling at Szilasliget and Mogyorod. Check which point your bus leaves from before you set out, because the changeover moves between the weekend and the weekdays. The H9 to Csomor is running normally.
The August 20 programme has turned the Rose Garden on Margaret Island into a light-art exhibition called Fenykert, the light garden, and it stays up from August 20 to 22 rather than for the holiday alone. The installations are big and several of them answer back: a ten metre Moon from Biela Noc let down among the trees, a Circus Lumineszenz sculpture that makes an invisible magnetic field readable, two giant nerve cells signalling to each other in Koros Design's Connected, and a LaLuz Visuals projection across the trees that only snaps into a picture once you find the right spot to stand. It opens at 20:00 and runs past midnight, which is the whole point, because none of it works in daylight. Plan the trip in: from 17:00 on August 20 Margaret Bridge and the southern exit of the island are closed, so bus 26 is your way on that night, and it runs until around 2:00.
The Hungarian homepage of Lukács carries two service notices: the men's changing room is shut for renovation work, and the private tub bath is unavailable for the same reason. The English version of that page carries only the second one, so someone reading in English arrives without knowing. Lukács normally sells you either a locker in a large changing room split by gender, or a cabin, the lockable private booth, for 1,000 Ft on top of entry. The operator gives no reopening date and does not say what stands in for the men's side, so sort it out at the till rather than at the turnstile.
Rudas normally splits its Ottoman pool by gender for the first hours of a weekday, men on some mornings and women on others, and opens it to everyone from 11:00. Until August 23 the operator has dropped that split and the bath runs coed from the moment it opens, which is the window to use if you want the sixteenth century octagon with someone of the other gender and cannot make a weekend. The trade is on the price list. Through the coed period only the all-zone ticket is sold, 12,000 Ft Monday to Thursday and 15,000 Ft Friday to Sunday, so the 8,000 Ft ticket that buys just the Turkish bath during those single-sex morning blocks is not available. Two more dates to write down: on August 20 the bath closes at 18:00, and from August 20 to 23 it runs on weekend hours. Nobody under 14 is admitted, coed period or not.
The fortieth Mesterségek Ünnepe takes over the Buda Castle district from August 20 to 23 and entry is free, which is rare for anything happening up on that hill over a holiday weekend. The market of makers runs 10:00 to 21:00 and the stages carry on until 23:00, with August 20 the exception: everything closes at 21:00 that day. This year's guest of honour is the United States, with Azerbaijan, South Korea, Japan, China, Kyrgyzstan and Poland also sending craftspeople, and folk pottery is the trade in the spotlight. Getting up there needs a moment's thought rather than a taxi, because the Castle district carries traffic restrictions from August 15 to 25 and on August 20 the crowd for the evening show is on the same hill.
The Budapest Wine Festival runs September 9 to 12 in the Buda Castle, and the ticket you buy this month is not priced like the one you buy next month. Until August 23 a day ticket is 7,900 Ft; from August 24 the same day ticket is 8,900 Ft. The four-day pass is 15,900 Ft in the same window instead of its usual 16,900 Ft. There is also a new cheaper option this year, the Explorer day ticket at 4,450 Ft, which gets you in but only until 17:00, so it suits an afternoon of tasting rather than an evening of concerts. The Americas are the guest region for the thirty-fifth edition, so Napa and Mendoza pour alongside the Hungarian wine regions, and the VIP wristband starts at 15,000 Ft with its own venue and drinks list.
Tram 6 is the one Budapest line that never sleeps, still looping the Nagykorut past Oktogon, Blaha Lujza ter and Nyugati at four in the morning. BKK has scheduled maintenance on three consecutive nights, so on the nights of August 16 to 17, 17 to 18 and 18 to 19 the tram stops and a replacement bus runs in its place under the number 6. It covers the same route, just slower and from the curb rather than the island platform in the middle of the road, so add a few minutes if you are coming back from a ruin bar in the small hours. Daytime service is untouched, and the denser all-night tram service already announced for the August 20 holiday is a separate arrangement.
Palatinus sells itself on two things, the wave pool that kicks off roughly every hour and a slide tower worth a whole afternoon. The operator now lists both the wave service and the orange slide as out of operation for technical reasons, with no restart date attached. The Pala bus, the little shuttle that saves you the walk across Margaret Island, is off the road as well, described on the Hungarian site as stopped for an indefinite period after a breakdown. Everything else runs as normal, the other pools, the remaining slides and the thermal section, so the day is still worth it, just not if the wave pool was the entire reason you were going.
The national chief medical officer ordered the heat alert on July 30, cut it to second degree from August 8, and it ran out on August 11 at midnight without being renewed. From August 2 the bath operator had switched off every electric sauna and steam chamber for what it announced as about ten days, which hit Csillaghegy, Dandar, Palatinus, Paskal, Pesterzsebet, Punkosdfurdo and Romai, while Széchenyi, Lukács and Rudas kept their gas fired hot air rooms and steam cabins running the whole time. That window has passed, no bath still carries the energy notice, and Palatinus lists its steam cabin, aroma sauna and Finnish sauna as working again. The operator never posted a separate all clear, so check the bath's own availability page if a particular sauna is the reason you are going: Dandar's mini sauna world has been shut since July 13 for a rebuild, and Csillaghegy's steam cabin and UFO slide are out for technical reasons.
The pedestrian week has an end time now: 12:00 on August 21, when the Chain Bridge roadway goes back to traffic. The embankment closures it came with outlast it, running to 22:00 on August 22 on the Buda side and 6:00 on August 24 on the Pest side, with the Varkert rakpart until 16:00 on August 23 and the Castle district to August 25.
Fővárosi Vízművek asked all of its customers on August 12 to cut back on piped drinking water. The catchment is short of rain, and drawing water from a low Danube takes steadily more equipment and more power, though what reaches your tap is unaffected and still excellent. Nothing is rationed in Budapest and the tap water is still good to drink, so keep filling your bottle rather than buying plastic. Up in the Danube Bend at Dunabogdány, where summer use ran to almost the whole available production capacity, the mayor lifted the water restriction at 14:00 on August 24 after the river rose and consumption fell back. The city's own cuts ended on September 1, so the fountains, the landmark floodlighting and the Gellért Hill waterfall are running again. That was an electricity call and it does not lift this one: the waterworks' request still stands.
The official programme is out and the evening on the river has a different shape this year. At 21:00 a thirty minute show runs over the Danube between the Chain Bridge and Margaret Bridge, built from light painting and drones, and a ten minute fireworks display closes it. What comes back later is the light show without the fireworks and without the drones, twice more during the evening with one run from 22:00 to 22:30, so the fireworks are a single ten minute window and missing them means missing them. The light painting on Parliament and the Chain Bridge stays lit until 1:00. Earlier the same day the flag raising is at 8:00 on Kossuth ter and the air parade crosses the same stretch of river from 9:00, so the good riverbank spots get taken twice in one day.
For the state holiday the Orszaghaz runs its Nyitott Parlament day: free entry, no advance registration, 10:00 to 18:00, and the visit takes in the Grand Staircase and the Dome Hall. Every other day of the year that building is a paid ticket on a booked time slot, so treat the queue as the price you pay instead. Wheelchair users skip the line and should ask the Parliamentary Guard, and there is a step free area with accessible toilets on the south side by the Andrassy statue. Across the river the Carmelite Monastery opens free the same day, 8:00 to 16:00.
The confectioners' guild has named the Bíborfehér this year's Magyarország Tortája, the twentieth time it has run the competition. It comes from the Kézműves Cukrászda in Gyula, made by László Balogh, Zoltán Balogh and Roland Kis, and the set theme was rögös túró and tejföl, the crumbly curd cheese and the sour cream that most Hungarian kitchens run on. A record sixty cakes were entered. The sugar free title went to the Szilvafácska, a plum cake from the Promenád Kávéház in Balatongyörök. Both arrive for the August 20 holiday, and the official programme puts them at the Várkert Bazár.
BKK has closed Obudai-sziget to road traffic for the build-up, the festival and the teardown, so the H5 HEV is the way in: it runs continuously between Batthyany ter and Aquincum from 22:00 on Sunday August 9 until 06:00 on Sunday August 16. Bus 226 is on a changed route until August 23, between Nyugati palyaudvar and Obuda, Bogdani ut, and no longer touches the island. Transfer buses link Liszt Ferenc airport with the island from August 10 to 14, run both directions on August 15, and go island-to-airport on August 16. Tram 6 on the Grand Boulevard keeps the denser weekend night timetable every night from August 10 to 13, and BKK runs a round-the-clock info point at the Filatorigat HEV stop from 10:00 on August 10 until 14:00 on August 16, in English too.
Across five coordinated days in July, BKK inspectors checked 45,778 passengers together with Budapest police and city wardens, and around one percent of them were surcharged and put off the vehicle. The lines were not random: trams 1, 1A, 4 and 6, metro lines M1 and M2, and the entrances at Nyugati palyaudvar, Nepliget, Deli palyaudvar, Ors vezer tere and Deak Ferenc ter. Passenger coordinators ran a further 38,880 checks at those metro gates. Buy before you board and validate again at every change of line: a paper ticket that has not been punched counts as no ticket.
BKK is adding evening departures on tram 2, the line along the Pest bank that most visitors ride for the view of the Castle and the bridges. From August 14, on Fridays and Saturdays between 19:00 and 22:00, it runs every 7 to 8 minutes. BKK gives the reason as the traffic the riverside now generates after dark, naming the reopened lower embankment and Budapest Park among the draws along the route. It is a small change with a real effect: the run along the Pest bank is the cheapest sightseeing in the city, and from mid-August the evening wait for it gets shorter.
A government decree moved two days this month: Saturday August 8 was worked as a normal weekday, and Friday August 21 becomes a rest day in exchange. The part worth planning around is the one still ahead. August 20 is St Stephen's Day and already a public holiday, so with the 21st off and the weekend behind it, Hungary runs four days off in a row, Thursday August 20 through Sunday August 23. Expect holiday opening hours, fuller baths and busier trains across the whole stretch. The Friday is a rest day rather than a working day, so banks, offices and post offices keep holiday hours, and anything that needs a counter is better done before Thursday.
The national chief medical officer has cut the level 3 heat alert that has run since July 30 down to level 2 from midnight tonight, and the lower grade holds until midnight on Tuesday August 11. It is a step down rather than an all clear, so the public drinking fountains mapped in the BudapestGO app and the air-conditioned public rooms listed by the disaster management service are still worth knowing. One practical thing changes with it: Palatinus has been staying open until 20:00 since July 30 only because of the alert, and that extension ends tonight, so the lido closes at 19:00 again from Saturday. The baths' electric saunas stay off either way, because that measure follows the power grid rather than the alert.
Planned maintenance keeps the M2 metro on a short route until midday on Sunday August 9: trains run only between Deli palyaudvar and Deak Ferenc ter, and a replacement bus badged M2 covers the rest of the line out to Ors vezer tere. Keleti palyaudvar sits on that stretch, so a Sunday morning arrival there, or a morning departure from it, means the bus rather than the metro for the hop into the centre. The bus leaves from the line 9 stop on the Kobanya side at Deak Ferenc ter, and from the Kobanya-side terminus at Ors vezer tere. The full line is back from noon, and BKK picked the quietest slot of the week for the work.
Szabadsag hid opened in 1896 as the Ferenc Jozsef bridge, and the occupying German army dropped its middle span into the river during the siege of Budapest in January 1945. Soviet crews cleared most of the wreck after the war, but steel from it still lies on the riverbed alongside the bridge, and this summer's drawdown has uncovered it again. The last time it showed was the 2018 drought, when the river sat at 32 cm. The water authority read the Danube at Budapest at 24 cm at 07:00 this morning, against the record 15 cm set last Saturday, and sediment still covers part of the structure, so how much stands out changes with the level.
Budapest Airport said on July 31 that it would cut its energy use over the following ten days, concentrating the saving between 17:00 and 22:00, and that the intensity of the air conditioning in passenger areas would come down with it. The airport expects Terminal 2 to sit slightly warmer than usual in that window and has not published a date for the measure ending. Flight handling, critical infrastructure and safe operation all continue unaffected, so this is a comfort question rather than a disruption. If you fly out in the evening while the heat holds, fill a bottle once you are through security and do not count on the terminal to cool you down.
Sziget runs August 11 to 15 on Obuda Island, and the organizers say the festival can cut itself off from the national grid completely and keep going on its own diesel generators if the country's supply comes under pressure. They set out three modes: normal grid supply, a hybrid that leans on the generators through the 17:00 to 22:00 peak the government has asked everyone to spare, and full independence. Their figure is 1.3 kWh per person per day against the 3 to 5 kWh a Hungarian household uses per person, which is the answer they gave to politicians calling the festival's demand gigantic. The practical read for a ticket holder: a power problem at national level does not cancel your week on the island.
A big concert on Hajogyari Island on Saturday August 8 starts at 19:00, and BKK begins moving the crowd from midday. Slachta Margit rakpart is closed to ordinary traffic between Margaret Bridge and Mozaik utca from midday, with only public transport and authorized vehicles getting through, so a rental car or a bike on that stretch of the Buda bank needs another route. Tram 1 nearly doubles its capacity between Becsi ut/Vorosvari ut and Lehel utca/Robert Karoly korut, the H5 HEV runs denser than usual, and extra buses shuttle between Nyugati palyaudvar and the island from 13:30 until 01:00. The island is reached over the K bridge from Filatorigat on the H5, or the H bridge from Szentlelek ter on tram 1, and both will be busy in the evening.
Since the evening of August 2 the city has kept the floodlights off on more than 300 buildings and bridges, around 10,000 fixtures in all, including the Chain Bridge and Buda Castle. The national picture changed on August 7, when the prime minister said the voluntary power saving asked of the country was no longer needed. Budapest is holding its own measures anyway, and the mayor said on August 7 that the decorative lighting, the fountains and the energy-saving timetables on public transport all stay as they are for now, because the Danube is expected to fall again. Street lighting runs as normal, so the city is lit to walk in, just not lit up, and no date has been given for switching the landmarks back on. If your evening was built around a night cruise, a rooftop table or the bridge photograph, move it to sunset, when the architecture still does the work. The light painting on Parliament and the Chain Bridge on August 20 belongs to that evening's show, not to the everyday floodlighting coming back on.
The level 3 heat alert, the top step, has been in force since midnight on July 30, and on August 4 the national chief medical officer pushed it out to midnight on Friday August 7. Level 3 is the point where the heat stops letting go at night, which is what wears people down rather than simply slowing them. It is also the reason the baths have switched off their electric saunas and the country is being asked to move its power use out of the early evening. Budapest keeps public drinking fountains 300 to 500 meters apart across the busy districts and maps them in the BudapestGO app, and the disaster management service publishes a list of air-conditioned public rooms anyone can walk into. The order lapses at midnight on Friday unless it gets extended again, which has already happened once. Sights before eleven, water or somewhere cold through the afternoon, city again after six.
The Budapest gauge on the Danube read 20 centimeters at seven on the morning of August 5, and the water authority publishes the number live if you want to watch it move. At that level the Inseg-szikla, the outcrop at the foot of Gellert Hill that Hungarians like to call the country's lowest summit, is standing in open air, and so are the remains of the Ferenc Jozsef hid, the bridge that held this spot until it was blown up in January 1945 and was replaced by today's Szabadsag hid. Both sit near the Buda end of Szabadsag hid, which the 47 and 49 trams cross, and the view works from the bridge deck for nothing. The riverbed itself is not a walking surface whatever the weekend photographs suggest, and the same low water is why the Danube Bend boats are tied up and the baths have their electric saunas switched off. Look while it lasts, because the river only does this in the driest summers.
Budapest's public bike share came back on August 3 as a rebuilt system: 3,300 bikes, 800 of them electric-assist, run by Inurba Mobility on a five-year contract. Everything happens in the MOL Bubi app. You find a bike on the map, hold it for up to ten minutes, scan the QR code on the frame and the smart lock springs open. The part worth knowing sits on the tariff page rather than in the announcement: the cheap passes, HUF 2,500 a month for classic bikes and HUF 2,000 if you hold a BudapestGO travel pass, are closed to anyone registered at a foreign address. Visitors get pay-as-you-go, which costs nothing to join and then bills by the minute. Beyond that: the electric assist stops helping at 25 km/h, a bike under 15 percent battery will not release from its station, and the ride has to end at a Bubi station or you pay an off-station surcharge. The service area covers 40 square kilometers now and doubles in a later phase.
The level 3 heat alert, the top step, ran from midnight on July 30 to midnight on August 4, and on August 4 the national chief medical officer extended it to midnight on Friday August 7. The government's daily report still forecasts sustained extreme heat between August 3 and 9 that barely eases at night, so the heat outlasts the order by two days. It is also why the baths have switched off their electric saunas and Paks is asking the country to save power in the evening: the Danube stood at minus 135 cm at Paks on August 2, and another reactor block went offline that same morning. Budapest keeps public drinking fountains a few hundred meters apart in busy districts and maps them in the BudapestGO app, and the disaster management service lists air-conditioned public rooms anyone can walk into. Sights before eleven, water or somewhere cold through the afternoon, city again after six.
The level 3 heat alert, the top step, was ordered from midnight on July 30 to midnight on August 4, but the government's own daily report published on August 3 says the conditions clearly still hold and may last past August 5, with sustained extreme heat between August 3 and 9 that barely eases at night. Read that as an extension waiting to be signed rather than an alert about to lapse. It is also why the baths have switched off their electric saunas and Paks is asking the country to save power in the evening: the Danube stood at minus 135 cm at Paks on August 2, and another reactor block went offline that same morning. Budapest keeps public drinking fountains a few hundred meters apart in busy districts and maps them in the BudapestGO app, and the disaster management service lists air-conditioned public rooms anyone can walk into. Sights before eleven, water or somewhere cold through the afternoon, city again after six.
MAHART PassNave has pushed its low-water suspension out to August 23, two weeks beyond the August 9 it first gave. The Budapest to Szentendre, Budapest to Visegrad, Visegrad to Esztergom, Visegrad Hop-On, Esztergom sightseeing and hydrofoil services stay off for the whole period, and the daytime Budapest Hop-On is still skipping the Margitsziget Sportuszoda stop. Sightseeing cruises on the Budapest stretch itself keep running. Overland is the answer: the H5 suburban railway runs its full route to Szentendre again from August 8, and buses cover Visegrad. If a Danube Bend day is in your plan before August 24, put it on rails or rubber rather than waiting for the river.
The national chief medical officer put the whole country under a level 3 heat alert, the top step, at midnight on July 30, and it stands until midnight on August 4 unless the public health centre extends it. This is the reason behind the bath saunas going off and Paks asking the country to save power in the evening, so it is worth planning around rather than filing under weather. Budapest keeps public drinking fountains a few hundred metres apart across busy and densely built areas and maps them in the BudapestGO app, and the disaster management service publishes a list of air-conditioned public rooms anyone can walk into. The local move is simple: sights before eleven, water or somewhere cold through the afternoon, city back after six.
Budapest Spas, the operator behind Széchenyi, Palatinus, Lukács, Rudas and Dandar, switched off every electrically powered sauna and steam room from August 2, and its own announcement put the measures at an expected ten days. Seven baths carry it: Csillaghegy, Dandar, Palatinus, Paskal, Pesterzsebet, Punkosdfurdo and Romai. Three baths still let you sweat, because there gas does the work instead of electricity, and Széchenyi, Rudas and Lukács keep their gas-fired hot-air chambers and steam cabins running as usual. High-consumption water features stop after 17:00 and the late opening at baths that normally run to 22:00 is suspended. Behind it is the river: the Danube has fallen below the level Paks needs to draw its cooling water, and the plant that supplies close to half of Hungary's electricity said on July 30 that a full shutdown had become unavoidable.
The heat has bought Margaret Island's big open-air complex an extra hour: Palatinus is open until 20:00 from July 30 to August 4, against the 09:00 to 19:00 it lists for every other day of the week. That last hour is the good one, once the day crowd thins and the water is still holding the afternoon. Adult entry is 6,000 HUF on a weekday and 6,500 HUF at the weekend, the same price list that took effect on June 13. Bus 26 runs the length of the island and stops outside, and it is worth checking the operator's available-services page first, because not every pool and sauna runs the whole season.
Track work is taking the northern tram spine apart in two stages. Until August 9 nothing runs between Lehel tér and the Angyalföld depot: the 12 is off entirely, the 12A shuttles between Rákospalota, Kossuth utca and the depot, and the 14 covers only Káposztásmegyer, Megyeri út down to it. A replacement bus badged 14 fills the closed stretch, boarding at the Váci út stop the 950 night bus uses, and buses 105, 210 and 210B run the same corridor. From August 10 to 19 the 12 and 14 stop completely, with replacement buses on all three routes. At the Káposztásmegyer, Mogyoródi-patak terminal, buses 122E, 126, 296 and 296A move to the Kőrösbánya utca entrance. If you are staying along Váci út or out toward Újpest, the second phase is the one to plan around.
Track maintenance has cut the H5 suburban railway back to Kaszasdulo through August 7, so trains run only from there out to Bekasmegyer and Szentendre. Replacement buses badged H5 cover the closed Batthyany ter to Kaszasdulo stretch, and a second line, H5Y, runs between Goncz Arpad varoskozpont and Kaszasdulo. Your Budapest pass or regional ticket is valid on both and the transfer onto the train costs nothing extra. Buses 34, 106 and 134 are the other way north. Normal service resumes August 8, comfortably before Sziget crowds start using the line on August 11.
MAHART PassNave lists its low-water suspension as running to August 9: the Budapest-Szentendre, Budapest-Visegrad, Visegrad-Esztergom, Visegrad Hop-On, Esztergom sightseeing and hydrofoil routes are all off. The daytime Budapest Hop-On cruise is skipping the Margitsziget Sportuszoda stop for the same reason, and the operator separately notes that Vac harbor is under restoration and its ships are not docking there. Sightseeing cruises on the Budapest stretch itself keep running. If Szentendre or Visegrad is on your plan before August 10, go overland instead: the H5 HEV to Szentendre, which starts with a replacement bus from Batthyany ter until August 7, or the bus to Visegrad.
Planned maintenance keeps the M4 running only between Kelenfold vasutallomas and Szent Gellert ter - Muegyetem from July 28 through August 2, which shuts every Pest station on the line, including Fovam ter for the Great Market Hall, Kalvin ter and Keleti palyaudvar. Tram 47 and the more frequent tram 49 cover Fovam ter and Kalvin ter, with tram 48 joining on Saturday; trams 4 and 6 reach Rákóczi ter. Buses 7, 133E and the boosted 107 run from Szent Gellert ter straight through to Keleti. If you arrive by train from the west, stay on past Kelenfold to Deli palyaudvar and take the M2 into town instead.
Budapest Play, the rebranded street music competition, has released the complete performer schedule for its six days: July 30-31, August 1 and August 6-8. The ten locations are Deak ter, Batthyany ter, Nagyvarad ter, Ors vezer tere, Keleti palyaudvar, the Margaret Island entrance, Fény utca market, the Fehervari ut market hall, Fabian Juli ter and the Meder riverbank. Sets run in 70-minute blocks, starting as early as 11:00 at some spots and going to nearly 22:00 at others. It's free to watch, and audience votes count alongside a professional jury toward prizes including a Sziget Festival slot.
The 35th Budapest Wine Festival takes over the Buda Castle terraces September 9-12, and the organizers are flagging the change in their own headline: it runs Wednesday to Saturday, not the weekend-heavy pattern regulars expect. The 2026 guest theme is wines of the Americas. Early-bird Wednesday day tickets are 6,900 HUF instead of 8,900 while a limited batch lasts, and that price disappears after July 31. Presale then runs to August 23 at 7,900 HUF for Thursday and 8,900 HUF for Friday or Saturday. If you only want a couple of hours, the Explorer ticket gets you in until 17:00 for 4,450 HUF on Wednesday or Thursday, 4,950 HUF on Friday.
The 35th Budapest Wine Festival takes over the Buda Castle terraces September 9-12, and the organizers are flagging the change in their own headline: it runs Wednesday to Saturday, not the weekend-heavy pattern regulars expect. The 2026 guest theme is wines of the Americas. Early-bird Wednesday day tickets are 6,900 HUF instead of 8,900 while a limited batch lasts, and that price is gone after tonight. Presale then runs to August 23 at 7,900 HUF for Thursday and 8,900 HUF for Friday or Saturday, with a four-day pass at 15,900 HUF. If you only want a couple of hours, the Explorer ticket gets you in until 17:00 for 4,450 HUF on Wednesday or Thursday, 4,950 HUF on Friday.
The Formula 1 Hungarian Grand Prix runs July 24-26 at the Hungaroring in Mogyorod, and the easiest way in skips the traffic entirely. The free fan shuttle bus connects Kerepes HEV station to Gate 3, timed with the H8 suburban trains running every 10-15 minutes from Budapest, and return shuttles run from Gate 3 back to Godollo station into the evening. If you'd rather leave straight from downtown, the paid City Shuttle runs every 20 minutes from Olof Palme Setany near Heroes' Square (one-way EUR 25, return EUR 38) to Gate 8. Whichever way you go, budget extra time: organizers warn that police may adjust road access around the circuit all weekend.
Rudas Thermal Bath's Turkish-bath hot air chambers are out of service until July 28, and the swimming pool's women's shower area plus the salt cabin are also temporarily closed. Separately, the Turkish bath switches to mixed-gender bathing from July 24-27, a break from its usual separate men's and women's days, with only all-in tickets sold during that window. If Rudas is on your list this week, plan around both the equipment outage and the ticket change.
Budapest Play, the rebranded street music competition, sets up buskers and duos at ten spots around the city on July 30-31, August 1 and August 6-8, from Deak Ferenc ter and Batthyany ter to Margaret Island and the Fény utca market. It's free to watch, and audience votes count alongside a professional jury toward prizes including a Sziget Festival slot. Worth building an evening walk around if you're downtown on any of those dates, check the official site for the exact schedule since it's only finalized closer to the dates.
Budapest Park, the riverside open-air club that normally runs shows nightly, has no concerts on July 24, 25 or 26 because of closures tied to the Southern Railway (Deli korvasut) construction project. The venue's ticket office is also closed those three days, though a temporary outdoor bar stays open for anyone who wanders by. Regular programming resumes July 27 with Charlie Puth, so if a Budapest Park show was part of your plan for the F1 Grand Prix weekend, it's off the table this year.
The zoo's long-delayed Biodome partially opened on July 1, turning about a hectare of the site into a year-round indoor tropical garden with roughly 13,000 plants, a 14.5-meter waterfall and life-sized prehistoric reptile models. The aquarium section and main hall are still closed and will open in stages. No separate ticket needed, standard zoo admission (5,900 HUF adults, 4,200 HUF kids) covers it. Worth folding into a zoo visit this summer, especially on a scorcher of a day.
Budapest's Danube level remains within centimeters of the historic low, and MAHART PassNave still has the Budapest-Szentendre, Budapest-Visegrad, Visegrad-Esztergom, Visegrad Hop-On, Esztergom sightseeing and hydrofoil routes suspended through August 2. The daytime Hop-On cruise also can't dock at the Margitsziget Sports Pool stop while levels stay this low. City sightseeing cruises on the Budapest stretch itself are still running. If Szentendre or Visegrad is on your plan through early August, go by train or bus instead of by boat.
Rudas Thermal Bath shuts entirely on July 21 and 22 for maintenance and cleaning. When it reopens, the Turkish bath switches to mixed-gender bathing from July 24-27, a break from its usual separate men's and women's days, and only all-in tickets are sold during that window. If Rudas is on your list this week, work around the closure and check which ticket type you need before you go.
Cash and card at Budapest's parking machines stopped working on July 1. Over 3,000 meters are being pulled district by district, and payment now runs through a mobile app, SMS or phone call, with a QR code on the new signage pointing you to the options. Hourly rates rose too: 800 HUF in zone A, 600 in B, 400 in C, 300 in D. Renting a car this week means installing a parking app before you park, not after.
Budapest overhauled its night public transport for the first time in two decades on the night of July 1-2. Expect new direct routes linking outer districts to each other (not just downtown), wider coverage, and stops within 500 meters in dense areas. If you're counting on a night bus after a late one at a ruin bar, check the route in BudapestGO rather than trusting the old lines.
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