Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Websites
You can find English-language news and entertainment
listings
online at
xpatloop.com
and
caboodle.hu
. For up-to-the-minute restaurant, club and bar reviews check out
welovebudapest.com
.
As for
blogs
pestiside.hu
provides an irreverent expat take on life
and events in Hungary,
horinca.blogspot.hu
are the entertaining musings of an long-term
Budapest resident and klezmer player while
lostandfoundinbudapest.wordpress.com
fo-
cuses on the city from a student's point of view. Slightly quirkier are
disappearingbud-
apest.blogspot.com
which looks at undiscovered or disappearing features of the city and ar-
chitectural blog
budapest100.hu
.
FESTIVALS
Whatever time of the year you visit Budapest, there's almost certain to be something
happening.ThetwobiggesteventsbyfararetheSpringFestivalinMarchandtheCafé
Budapest Contemporary Arts Festival in October, both of which feature world-class
music, film and drama. Indeed, music is a constant theme throughout the festival year,
with none bigger than the mega Sziget Festival in August.
Manytheatres,concerthallsanddancehousesclosedownduringthelong,hotmonthsofJuly
and August, when open-air performances are staged instead. The city's population returns
from the countryside for the fireworks on August 20, and life returns to normal as school
starts the following week. The new arts season kicks off in the last week of September with
a rash of music festivals and political anniversaries. Great fun, too are the growing num-
ber of food and drink festivals during which stalls are often set up in Vörösmarty tér and in
Varosháza park, on Károly körút.
JANUARY AND FEBRUARY
Farsang
Jan 6 to Ash Wednesday. Held in the run-up to Lent, this Hungarian carnival sees
revellerstakingtothestreetsinfancydress,paradingacrosstheLánchídanddowntoVörös-
martytér.Unfortunatelytheinclement weatheratthistimeofyearoftendampenstheevent's
spirit.
Mangalica Festival
First weekend in Feb;
mangalicafesztival.hu
.
A pig-out in every
sense of the word, as the nation's favourite curly-haired swine is celebrated in Szabadság
tér; hog roasts aside, there are cooking competitions and a stack of other foodie treats.
MARCH AND APRIL
Declaration of Independence of 1848
March 15. A public holiday in honour of the 1848
Revolution, which began with Petőfi's declaration of the National Song from the steps of
