From bar to bath

I've spent seven nights in Budapest's Yellow Submarine Hostel, slap-bang in the city centre. What do I get for paying for an overpriced, well slept-in dormitory bed, cold showers and a week of forcing myself to stomach the cheap bread and chocolate spread for breakfast? A T-shirt to make sure I never forget the worst hostel in Europe.

In spite of all the bad points of this hostel, it also provided much of the entertainment for my stay. The city seems to attract a truly international crowd of visitors from weekenders to backpackers and a surprisingly large number of Americans made it this far on their Eurail passes.

My Italian has gone from basic to almost fluent after spending the first few nights drinking with a couple of highly charged Italian guys, both named Luca, who drove 18 hours to Budapest to drink the town dry and leave. I've also met countless others from all over the world, in Budapest with the same common interest.

Luckily the drinking wasn't confined to Yellow Submarine's kitchen table. I found myself regularly seeking out the underground bar scene, consisting of a handful of well hidden chilled-out nightspots, each playing host to stern and sober table football contests with guaranteed defeat for anyone not born and bred in Hungary.

Budapest's bars are really something. On the first night I was given an exciting introduction to Hungary, drinking in a bar called Sark to the sound of loud and live gypsy music, watching in disbelief as Hungarians got up and stomped their feet to the sound of home-made instruments. Other surprises amongst Budapest's nightlife included seeing a dog enjoying the clubs just as much as I was, and stumbling upon a bar that doubled up as brothel.

Most nights have begun in Pot Kulcs (Spare Key) a low-key, studenty bar hidden behind a rusty unmarked metal door in a garden wall. It's surprisingly popular for somewhere so discreet. A handful of other hostellers and I were almost arrested when a local phoned the police as we knocked on doors trying to find Pot Kulcs. Five minutes later and much to our disbelief a police car actually rolled up: we managed to divert their attention by asking for directions.

I don't know how many more cities can be described as 'Paris of the...' but describing Budapest as the Paris of Eastern Europe is not a bad portrayal. Either side of the Danube are Buda and Pest. Pest is the heart of the city with all the hustle and bustle, Buda hilly and home to a large world heritage sight with castles, palaces and churches.

On the outskirts of the city is Statue Park, which houses a collection of monuments from the forty years of communist dictatorship in Hungary. In 1990 the people of Budapest made the decision to uproot these gigantic solemn reminders of the past and put them all in one area outside of the city for people to visit.

Also on my itinerary for Budapest was the House of Terror museum at 60 Andrassy Avenue. Now fully renovated, the former headquarters of the Hungarian ultra-right Arrowcross party houses a detailed and well compiled museum of the decades of communism in Eastern Europe and is an absolute must for any visitor.

The House of Terror was last on my itinerary but in hindsight should have been first. I left the museum stunned and moved by the immense detail of so many years of murder and torture of the Hungarian people. The last two rooms 'The Hall of Tears' and the 'Farewell' room, end the exhibition with the names of all those who were executed for political reasons, as well as video documentation of the 1989 demonstrations. It's impossible not to think about how different Hungary must have been just fifteen years ago.

In contrast to the decades of communism Budapest today seems to be trying to win awards for having the highest concentration of McDonald's and Burger King restaurants in Europe and is busy building some colossal indoor shopping malls.

Between drinking and sightseeing I've been relaxing in some of Budapest's many thermal baths. I'm not sure about the science of these thermal baths but I've been told it's to do with Hungary sitting on a fault line in the Earth's surface. Whatever the cause of this extraordinary natural wonder, it's hard to resist taking a dip at least once a day, usually in the most famous Széchenyi Spa, which has a range of different treatment baths as well as some excellent saunas. These baths were built as medical treatment centres but are also used by dedicated chess players and prowling single girls to play their field.

Budapest is a city with a lot of everything and definitely deserves a second visit, if only just to do it all again. Thank God for cheap flights!