Budapest · Backpacking

A 24-hour BKK travelcard is 2,750 Ft and a weekday set lunch — soup plus a main — runs 2,000–3,000 Ft at ordinary places. Add a similar evening meal and a couple of beers and a full day of transport, food and drink lands under 12,000 Ft before you pay for a bed; the bed is the number that moves.

A single ticket is 500 Ft, or 700 Ft bought on the spot; a block of ten is 4,500 Ft, and the 24-hour and 72-hour Budapest travelcards are 2,750 Ft and 5,750 Ft. If you will make more than five journeys in a day the travelcard already pays.

The direct 100E shuttle to Deák Ferenc tér needs its own 2,500 Ft ticket and no pass covers it. Bus 200E to Kőbánya-Kispest and then metro M3 is a normal 500 Ft journey and costs a fifth as much for maybe twenty minutes more.

The weekday lunch menu is the best-value meal in the city: two or three courses for roughly 2,000–3,000 Ft at canteens and neighbourhood restaurants, served from about 11:30 to 15:00 and gone after that. Look for a chalkboard reading napi menü or ebédmenü.

Városliget's paths, the Vajdahunyad Castle courtyard and the Shoes on the Danube memorial on the Pest embankment all cost nothing, and tram 2 along the river is a 500 Ft sightseeing ride. Most state museums charge, but their gardens and courtyards do not.