I like a boat trip. I think it’s a great way to get to see a city from a slightly unusual angle. With the Danube so very prominent in Budapest (my mental image of the city will always be the riverboat cruise adverts sprinkled throughout Midsummer Murders), it shouldn’t be so unusual, and my difficulty getting a ticket says perhaps it isn’t.
I’m not talking about the massive floating greenhouses/hotels, by the way, the ones that take a year’s salary in exchange for a week of Norovirus. I’m talking about the tourist boats, the ones that put a glass of bubbly in your hand, float you down to Parliament and bring you back an hour or two later. Once upon a time, you could just stroll down and jump on whichever was leaving next. Now I strongly recommend you book in advance. I turned up around 5pm and walked the entire length of the tourist piers, finding only one tour with spaces that evening.
Boat tours mostly leave from the piers between Erzsébet Bridge and Chain Bridge, on the Pest – east – side of the river. They range from fairly simple sightseeing cruises up to booze cruises, dinner cruises and an assortment of night entertainment cruises. I’m of the opinion that one cruise is much like another – you’ll choose by price and departure time rather than any preference in either the operator or the boat. The one exception to this is Duna’s “historical cruises” on a reproduction 19th century paddle steamer.
I’d planned to time my cruise to hit the sunset, having noted the previous evening what time the sky turned fun colours. I was scuppered by two things: going to the wrong place altogether and being behind schedule, and being utterly unable to convert to winter time as the clocks had changed the night before. Long story short, it was already dark as I marched along the bank looking for a boat. Fine. I like city lights anyway.
I got to the aforementioned Duna around 5pm, I think. They still had tickets for their 6pm modern cruise, especially as I was one person. The catch was that, to get a good seat, I had to wait for forty-five minutes before boarding started. As a queue was building up behind me, I tried to get out of the way, so instead of sitting on the crash barrier dividing the bank from the (vehicle-free) road, they produced a tiny stool and I sat there, effectively blocking the path and feeling very awkward about it. By luck, I’d become first come first served, ahead of all the people who’d booked their tickets ahead! I was ready to sprint to the boat once the previous cruise had disembarked and the boat cleaned, partly for a seat outside at the front and partly to stop being in everyone’s way. I’d been concerned about the free drink – how do I, as a solo traveller, nab my seat and then go to the bar? – but they were on offer on a table as I boarded. Prosecco? Oh, no – orange juice? Yes, I’ll have an orange juice, please! Then I hastened upstairs and to the front and had time to run back downstairs to grab a blanket. Budapest was unexpectedly warm that week – I spent most of it in a t-shirt – but an evening boat trip is chilly.
The boat filled up. Anyone with any sense sat in the warm saloon downstairs. The rest of us sat out on the deck. I shared a seat with a Canadian girl and her two cousins sat opposite. The seats were big double ones, really soft and cosy, the sort you “sink chummily into” rather than perch uncomfortably on. My new neighbours and friends had all opted for the wine and not one of them had even half-finished it by the time we got back. The issue of going to the bar was solved by seat service and waiters – the people behind me managed two or three beers in the hour.
I daresay most boat tours follow a similar route. We went south, under Erzsébet Bridge and Liberty Bridge, towards the National Theatre, then we turned around and chugged our way up to Parliament, turned around in a manoeuvre that half-convinced me we were trying to ram Margaret Bridge, past the Fisherman’s Bastion and back to our pier. By this point, having spent most of Saturday in Szechenyi and Rudas Baths and most of Sunday in Gellert, I hadn’t actually seen Budapest by daylight. I’d admired the buildings and the bridges lit up, discovered that the biggest lights go off around 11pm and seen something of the hubbub of a big city by night, but it looked completely different from this angle. Parliament became a massive – a colossal – golden wedding cake, just floating in my orbit. A wedding cake? A ship, a veritable leviathan, dominating the city.
The Fisherman’s Bastion and Matthias Church caught my eye too, as it always does. Even by night, Buda Castle seemed underwhelming – this is my own personal bias against the Baroque architectural style. I love Gothic to the exclusion of almost all else and it’s hard to care about a Baroque palace when there’s a big Gothic church and even bigger Gothic Parliament all lit up right there. That said, I could and did enjoy the bridges a lot. Budapest seems to subscribe to the concept that if you can put a light bulb anywhere, it will put a light bulb there. It makes for a very spectacular river tour after dark.
I can’t compare but on the whole, I think I’m glad I did it by night and not by day. That central bit of Budapest can never be less than beautiful but in a way, it comes to life in the dark. I absolutely needed the blanket, though – it was pretty cold out there.
One last thing: knowing the crew only have ten or fifteen minutes to turn the boat around before the next batch of passengers descend on them, I folded my blanket and returned it to the shelf on my way past and brought my empty glass back to the bar. I was amazed at the number of people who didn’t. It takes less than half a second to scoop up your glass as you stand up, and if you don’t want to make the effort to fold your blanket, you could at least bring it back downstairs with you. 150 glasses and 50 blankets is a lot for a small crew to collect in a few minutes.
I returned to the shore in the dark. The queue that had followed me onto the boat a little more than an hour ago had reappeared – it turned out a lot of people had booked the historical cruise and been shunted onto the modern after a technical issue kept the steamer docked for the night. As it was the only line that had availability “on the door” even under the circumstances, half its fleet out of action, Duna is probably a good bet if you want to just turn up without a prior booking. Dock 10, English-speaking crew selling tickets, proper old-fashioned salty seadog of a captain. The website says evening cruises are €31.99; I don’t remember it being that much and I think, from my bank transactions, if I’m looking at the right item, I paid £17.09. I believe in-person tickets might be cheaper than online – I guess you’re taking more of a chance on the availability.
If you like sightseeing and you like boats, Budapest is an absolute classic destination for a boat tour. If you only go on one boat tour in your entire life, make it Budapest.
I Am A Polar Bear 