Nine days from Vienna to Budapest: three capitals, one river, and an empire that used to run all of it

Three nights in Vienna, two in Bratislava and three in Budapest, three hundred kilometres down the Danube, with an hour on the train between the first two.

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Length
9 days, 8 nights
Where you stay
Vienna, Bratislava, Budapest
Places
24 across 9 days
123
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Vienna and Budapest were the two halves of one state for fifty years, and Bratislava sits exactly between them, an hour from one and two and a half from the other. Hungarian kings were crowned in its cathedral for two and a half centuries while Vienna was a day's ride upriver. Then the borders moved twice and the three cities spent most of the last century pretending the other two did not exist.

They are close enough that this is barely a journey. Vienna to Bratislava is an hourly commuter train and takes about an hour. Bratislava to Budapest is two and a half. Nobody needs a car, nobody flies, and the whole trip costs less in fares than a single airport transfer at home.

What you get is three cities that look related and behave nothing alike. Vienna is rich, formal and quiet after ten at night. Bratislava is small, cheap and has a castle that looks like an upturned table. Budapest is twice the size of either, half ruined and half gilded, and it is the one people book flights back to.

Highlights

  • The gold hooped crown that Holy Roman emperors were crowned in, in a case at eye level in the Hofburg
  • Standing-room tickets at the Vienna opera for the price of a sandwich, sold ninety minutes before curtain
  • The Bratislava cathedral where Hungary crowned nineteen kings and queens, with a gilded crown on the spire
  • A ruined castle above the meeting of two rivers, with the Iron Curtain running across its foot for forty years
  • Iron shoes bolted to the Pest embankment, where people were shot into the river in the winter of 1944
  • An outdoor thermal pool at eight in the morning in Budapest, steaming, with men playing chess in it

Where to stay

Vienna, three nights

Vienna was the capital of an empire of fifty million people and it still has the furniture: a ring road built where the walls were, a palace at each end of it, an opera house that puts on something almost every night of the season, and coffee houses where sitting for two hours over one cup is the correct behaviour rather than a liberty.

Three nights covers the old city, one imperial palace, one great picture collection and one evening of music, and leaves the outer districts, the wine taverns on the hills and half a dozen major museums untouched. Stay inside the ring if the budget allows and in the fourth or seventh district if it does not. Almost everything here is walkable and the rest is four minutes on a tram.

Bratislava, two nights

By train from Vienna, Wien Hauptbahnhof to Bratislava hlavná stanica, about 55 km.

Bratislava is the only capital city in the world that borders two other countries, and from the castle you can see both. For two hundred and fifty years, while the Ottomans held the middle of Hungary, this was where Hungarian kings were crowned and the Hungarian parliament sat. It was Pressburg to the Germans and Pozsony to the Hungarians, took its present name in 1919, and has been the capital of an independent Slovakia since 1993.

It is small. The old town is about six streets and you can walk it in an hour, which is why the day trippers off the Vienna boat think there is nothing here. Two nights gives you the castle, the coronation church, an evening when the terraces fill with people who live here, and a half day at the ruin on the cliff downriver that most visitors never reach.

Budapest, three nights

By train from Bratislava, Bratislava hlavná stanica to Keleti pályaudvar, about 161 km.

Two cities that only merged in 1873: hilly, quiet, medieval Buda on the west bank and flat, loud, nineteenth-century Pest on the east, with a river a third of a kilometre wide between them. Everything grand in Pest was built in one forty-year burst before 1914, and everything on the Buda hill was rebuilt after 1945, because the siege of Budapest flattened it.

Three nights gets you the castle hill, the Jewish quarter, one long afternoon in a thermal bath and an evening on the river. It does not get you Szentendre, the Danube Bend or the wine country, and it barely scratches the eating. Stay in Pest, in the fifth, sixth or seventh district: Buda is prettier and you will spend your evenings crossing back.

Day by day

Day 1 in Vienna

The cathedral, the Habsburg crypt and a long afternoon in a coffee house

Vienna's old city is a walkable oval and the cathedral sits in the exact middle of it, so start there and let the day come to you. The south tower is 136 metres and can be climbed on foot, 343 steps up a spiral with no view until the top; the north tower has a lift and half the reward.

Five minutes away, under a plain church on a small square, are the Habsburgs. A hundred and fifty of them, in metal boxes, from 1633 to the present, including a double sarcophagus the size of a car in which Maria Theresa lies next to her husband. Their hearts are in one church and their organs in another, which was the arrangement, and the crypt is quiet, cold and much stranger than its price suggests.

Then do the thing Vienna is actually for. Order a coffee by its proper name, take a newspaper off the rack, and sit for two hours in a marble room with a waiter who will not hurry you and would be faintly offended if you hurried him.

  1. 14:30

    Stephansdom

    Religious

    The Gothic cathedral at the centre of everything, with a roof of 230,000 glazed tiles laid in a chevron pattern and a south tower of 136 metres. The tower stairs are 343 steps and the catacombs below hold the Habsburg organs. Free to enter the back of the nave.

  2. 16:00

    Kaisergruft

    Other

    The Capuchin crypt, where 150 Habsburgs have been buried since 1633, from plain iron caskets to Maria Theresa's enormous double tomb. Ten minutes from the cathedral, rarely busy, and it takes about forty-five minutes.

  3. 17:15

    Café Central

    Other

    A coffee house of 1876 under a vaulted ceiling, where Trotsky played chess and half of pre-war Vienna read the papers. Order a Melange or a Grosser Brauner, take a paper from the rack, and do not rush.

  4. 20:00

    Dinner in the first district

    Eat

    The lanes behind the cathedral are full of cellars serving schnitzel at tourist prices. Walk to the Naschmarkt end or into the seventh district and pay two thirds as much for better food.

With more time: With an early arrival, the pedestrian streets run west from the cathedral to the palace gates and take twenty minutes at a stroll, past the imperial confectioner and a plague column of 1693 that is the most baroque object in the city.

Day 2 in Vienna

The imperial treasury, Bruegel, and standing places at the opera

The Hofburg is not one building but a small district: a winter palace that grew for six hundred years and now holds a president, a riding school, a chapel with a boys' choir and two of the best collections in Europe. Go to the treasury first and go early.

What is in it is genuinely hard to take in. The crown of the Holy Roman Empire is a hooped octagon of gold plates and uncut stones, older than most of the countries that used it, and worn at coronations for eight hundred years, and it sits in a case at eye level. Beside it are the Holy Lance, an imperial cloak embroidered in Palermo in 1133, and a narwhal tusk that the Habsburgs kept as a unicorn horn.

Across the square, the picture museum holds more Bruegel panels than anywhere else on earth, twelve of them in one room, including the hunters coming home through the snow. Give it two hours and skip the Egyptian wing unless you have a fourth day.

Then queue for standing places at the opera. They go on sale ninety minutes before the curtain, cost less than a plate of pasta, and buy you three hours of the Staatskapelle from a rail at the back with a small screen showing the words.

  1. 09:15

    Schatzkammer

    Culture

    The imperial treasury in the Hofburg: the tenth-century crown of the Holy Roman Empire, the Holy Lance, the Habsburg crown jewels and the coronation robes. Open early, quiet before ten, and about ninety minutes of looking.

  2. 11:30

    Kunsthistorisches Museum

    Culture

    Habsburg pictures in a palace built for them in 1891: twelve Bruegels in one room, Vermeer's painter in his studio, Velazquez, Titian and a room of Arcimboldo's vegetable heads. Two hours minimum. The cafe under the dome is worth the stop.

  3. 14:15

    Late lunch on the Museumsplatz

    Eat

    The courtyards of the museum quarter across the road are full of benches, cheap counters and students, and are a considerable relief after two palaces.

  4. 18:00

    Wiener Staatsoper

    Culture

    One of the great orchestras in Europe, in the pit, most nights of the season. Standing places go on sale at the Operngasse door ninety minutes before curtain, cost under twenty euros and are not sold online. Join the queue early and bring a scarf to tie to the rail.

With more time: If there is nothing on at the opera, the Albertina is two minutes away, opens late one night a week and holds Duerer's hare and a full floor of Monet to Picasso in rooms that were once imperial apartments.

Day 3 in Vienna

Schoenbrunn in the morning, the market at noon, Klimt in the afternoon

Schoenbrunn is fifteen minutes out on the U4 and worth being at by nine. It has 1,441 rooms, of which the standard tour shows about forty, and the point of going early is that the state rooms are narrow and a coach party fills them completely. Behind the palace the gardens climb to a colonnade on the ridge, free to walk up, with the whole city laid out below.

Come back into town for lunch at the long market that runs along the line of a covered river. About a hundred and twenty stalls, Turkish and Balkan and Viennese in roughly equal parts, cheap food at the western end and tourist prices at the eastern one. On Saturdays a flea market spills off the end of it for another half kilometre.

Finish at the summer palace on the hill above the ring, where the upper building holds the largest collection of Klimt anywhere and, at the top of the stairs, the one everybody comes for. Painted in gold leaf between 1907 and 1908, it is smaller than people expect and hangs alone.

  1. 09:00

    Schönbrunn Palace

    Historic

    The Habsburg summer palace, of whose rooms the Grand Tour shows about forty, plus formal gardens, a maze and a colonnade on the ridge behind with the best free view in Vienna. Timed tickets; book the night before in summer and take a nine o'clock slot.

  2. 12:30

    Naschmarkt

    Architecture

    Vienna's long market, about 120 stalls over half a kilometre, built along the top of a covered river. Eat at the western end where the prices are for locals. Saturday brings a large flea market onto the far end.

  3. 15:00

    Schloß Belvedere

    Historic

    Prince Eugene's summer palace of 1717 and now the national gallery, holding the largest collection of Klimt in the world with The Kiss at the top of the main stairs. The gardens between the upper and lower palaces are free and open late.

  4. 20:00

    Dinner in the seventh district

    Eat

    Neubau, behind the museum quarter, is where Vienna eats when it is not performing for anybody: small dining rooms, wine by the quarter litre and no dress code.

Day 4 in Bratislava

An hour on the train, then the coronation city

The train to Bratislava is a commuter service and takes an hour, which makes crossing an international border feel like going to work. Ask for the ticket that includes the city's buses and trams at the far end; it costs a euro or two more and saves you fumbling for change.

Bratislava's old town is six streets and a handful of squares, and the reason to take it seriously is upstairs in the cathedral. Between 1563 and 1830, with Buda in Ottoman hands, this was the coronation church of Hungary: eleven kings and eight queens, Maria Theresa among them, crowned here and then paraded through streets that still have brass crowns set into the pavement to mark the route.

Two minutes away, the archbishop's palace has a hall lined with mirrors where France and Austria signed the peace that ended the war of Austerlitz on the day after Christmas in 1805. The English tapestries hanging there were walled up and forgotten for a century, and only came to light during building work in 1903.

Finish at the gate, the last of four left standing, and eat somewhere on the square below it.

  1. 10:00

    Train to Bratislava

    Travel

    Wien Hauptbahnhof to Bratislava hlavna stanica, an hour and five minutes, roughly hourly. Buy the ticket that includes Bratislava city transport.

  2. 12:00

    Lunch on Hlavne namestie

    Eat

    The main square has terraces on all four sides and a fountain of 1572 in the middle. It is the one place in the city where you are paying a premium, and it is a small one.

  3. 13:30

    St. Martin's Cathedral

    Religious

    The coronation church of Hungary from 1563 to 1830, with Maria Theresa crowned here in 1741. A gilded replica crown weighing 300 kg sits on the spire, and brass crowns in the pavement outside trace the coronation route.

  4. 14:45

    Primate's Palace

    Historic

    A pink neoclassical palace of 1781 whose Hall of Mirrors saw the Peace of Pressburg signed in December 1805. Upstairs hangs a set of six English tapestries found bricked into a wall in 1903. Cheap, quick and almost empty.

  5. 16:00

    Michael's Gate with Tower

    Historic

    The only one of the four medieval city gates still standing, with a 51 metre tower topped by a statue of the archangel and a baroque cap added in 1758. The narrowest house in Europe is in the lane beside it.

  6. 19:00

    Dinner in the old town

    Eat

    Slovak cooking is dumplings, sheep's cheese and cabbage soup, and the version worth ordering is bryndzove halusky. A main course with a beer runs to about ten euros two streets off the square.

With more time: The Blue Church, ten minutes east of the old town, is an art nouveau parish church of 1913 painted in pale blue inside and out, including the roof tiles. It photographs like a cake and takes fifteen minutes.

Day 5 in Bratislava

The castle above the river, and a ruin on the Iron Curtain

The castle is a white box with four corner towers on a rock above the Danube, and the locals call it the upturned table. It burned down in 1811 after a garrison fire, stood as a shell for a hundred and forty years, and was rebuilt from the 1950s onwards, so what you walk into is essentially new. Go anyway, for the terrace: Austria is straight ahead across the river and Hungary is a few kilometres to the left, and there is nowhere else in Europe you can stand in one capital and see two other countries.

In the afternoon take bus 29 out to the cliff where the Morava runs into the Danube. There has been a fort on that rock since the Celts and the Romans, and the Slavs held it in the ninth century, and Napoleon's troops blew it up in 1809. What makes it worth the trip is the more recent layer: from 1948 to 1989 this was the very edge of the Eastern bloc, the rivers below were the border, and the barbed wire ran across the ground you are standing on. A monument at the foot of the cliff names the people shot trying to swim it.

Come back up the hill in the evening for the Soviet war memorial on the ridge, where six thousand eight hundred soldiers who died taking the city in 1945 are buried under an obelisk with the best view in Bratislava.

  1. 09:30

    Bratislava Castle

    Historic

    The white four-towered castle on the rock, gutted by fire in 1811 and rebuilt from 1953 onwards. The terrace looks across the Danube into Austria with Hungary a few kilometres downstream. The museum inside is skippable; the walls are not.

  2. 12:00

    Lunch below the castle

    Eat

    The lanes on the way down to the old town have several unpretentious kitchens. Anything with a Slovak daily menu chalked outside will feed you for under eight euros.

  3. 14:00

    Devín Castle

    Historic

    Ruined fortress on the cliff where the Morava meets the Danube, Celtic then Roman then Great Moravian, blown up by Napoleon's army in 1809 and sealed inside the Iron Curtain border zone from 1948 to 1989. Bus 29 from below the SNP bridge, about 25 minutes.

  4. 18:30

    Slavín monument

    Historic

    The Soviet military cemetery and obelisk on the hill above the city, finished in 1960, where about 6,800 soldiers killed in the fighting of spring 1945 are buried. Free, always open, and the view over the roofs at sunset is the best in the city.

With more time: If the weather is poor, the Slovak National Gallery on the embankment reopened in 2022 after a very long rebuild and is now one of the better modern museums in central Europe, with a cafe that people come to on its own account.

Day 6 in Budapest

Down to Budapest, and the river at dusk

Two and a half hours on a EuroCity, following the Danube through flat country and crossing the border somewhere near Sturovo without ceremony. Budapest Keleti is a cathedral of a station of 1884 with a glass roof and a good deal of soot, and the metro from it reaches the middle of Pest in ten minutes.

Spend the afternoon on the water's edge, because the first sight of this river from the Pest side is the thing people remember. The chain bridge was the first permanent crossing between the two towns, opened in 1849, engineered by an Englishman and built by a Scot with the same surname who was no relation. The retreating Germans destroyed every Budapest bridge in January 1945; this one was back by 1949 and had another full restoration finished in 2023.

A few hundred metres north along the embankment, sixty pairs of iron shoes stand at the water's edge. In the winter of 1944 and 1945, Arrow Cross militia brought Jewish Hungarians to this spot, made them take off their shoes because leather had value, and shot them into the river. The memorial went up in 2005 and is the quietest place in the city.

Then the parliament at dusk. Two hundred and sixty-eight metres of neo-Gothic along the bank, finished in 1904, and the dome is 96 metres high because the country was founded in 896.

  1. 09:30

    Train to Budapest

    Travel

    Bratislava hlavna stanica to Budapest Keleti, two and a half hours, every two hours. Reserve on Fridays and Sundays; otherwise walk on and pay on board.

  2. 13:00

    Late lunch in the fifth district

    Eat

    Drop the bag and eat near Vorosmarty ter, but not on it. Anywhere one street back does a two-course lunch menu for the price of a coffee on the square.

  3. 15:00

    Szechenyi Chain Bridge

    Architecture

    The first permanent bridge between Buda and Pest, opened in 1849, designed by William Tierney Clark and built by Adam Clark, who were not related. Blown up in 1945, rebuilt by 1949, restored again by 2023. Walk it, do not photograph it from a boat.

  4. 16:00

    Shoes on the Danube memorial

    Historic

    Iron shoes cast in 1940s styles and fixed to the stone where Arrow Cross militia shot Jewish Hungarians into the Danube in the winter of 1944. Installed in 2005 by Gyula Pauer and Can Togay. Free, exposed, and takes as long as it takes.

  5. 17:00

    Parliament

    Visit

    268 metres of neo-Gothic on the embankment, finished in 1904, with a dome 96 metres high in a nod to the year 896. Guided tours in English run several times a day and take 45 minutes; the outside at dusk is free and better.

  6. 19:30

    Dinner in the seventh district

    Eat

    The old Jewish quarter behind Kiraly utca is where Budapest eats and drinks now, from Israeli grills to ruin bars in bombed-out courtyards. Loud, cheap and open late.

Day 7 in Budapest

Castle hill, the tiled church and the hospital in the caves

Cross to Buda in the morning. The hill is a long limestone ridge with a rebuilt medieval quarter along the top of it, reached by a funicular of 1870 from the bridgehead or on foot up a zigzag path in twenty minutes.

The church at the top has been rebuilt so many times that dating it is a matter of taste: a Gothic core, a Turkish century as a mosque, and a nineteenth-century restoration that added the roof of glazed Zsolnay tiles in diamond patterns which is now the thing everyone photographs. Two Habsburg emperors were crowned kings of Hungary here, in 1867 and in 1916.

Next door, a mock-medieval terrace of white stone with seven turrets, one for each Magyar tribe that arrived in 895, built between 1895 and 1902 purely as a viewing platform. It was never a bastion and no fisherman ever defended it. The view over the river to the parliament is the postcard.

Then go underground. The limestone under the hill is riddled with natural caves that were linked into a system of cellars, and in 1944 an emergency hospital was installed in them, operating through the siege with two hundred beds and no water. In the 1950s it was converted into a nuclear bunker and kept secret. It opened to the public in 2008 and the tour is guided, cold, and better than it sounds.

  1. 09:30

    Matthias Church

    Religious

    Gothic at the core, a mosque under Ottoman rule, and given its diamond-patterned Zsolnay tile roof in Frigyes Schulek's restoration of 1874 to 1896. Franz Joseph was crowned here in 1867 and Charles, the last of them, in 1916. Modest dress, small entry fee.

  2. 11:00

    Fisherman's Bastion

    Other

    A white stone terrace of 1895 to 1902 with seven turrets for the seven Magyar tribes, built as a viewing platform and never as a defence. The upper terraces charge in the middle of the day and are free before nine and after seven.

  3. 12:15

    Lunch on the hill or below it

    Eat

    The restaurants along the castle streets are priced for the coach trade. Walk down the Vienna Gate side into Vizivaros, where the same lunch costs half.

  4. 14:30

    Hospital in the Rock Nuclear Bunker Museum

    Culture

    A wartime hospital built into the natural caves under the castle hill, running through the 1945 siege with 200 beds, then rebuilt as a secret nuclear bunker and only opened to visitors in 2008. Guided tours only, about an hour, and it is 18 degrees down there in August.

With more time: Gellert hill rises south of the castle and the walk up takes half an hour, ending at a citadel of 1854 and a bronze woman holding a palm leaf who has been up there since 1947. Sunset from the top covers the whole river.

Day 8 in Budapest

The great synagogue, the city park and a long afternoon in the water

Start in the seventh district at the largest synagogue in Europe, built in 1859 in a Moorish style for a congregation that wanted to look Hungarian and modern at once, seating close to three thousand. Behind it is a garden that is also a mass grave: two thousand people who died in the ghetto in the winter of 1944 are buried under the grass, and a steel weeping willow stands over them with a name on every leaf.

Then take the little yellow metro under Andrassy, which opened in 1896 and is the oldest underground railway on the European continent, out to the square at the top with its colonnade of Hungarian kings.

Behind it, in the city park, is a castle that is a joke made permanent. It was built in 1896 in wood and cardboard as a temporary pavilion showing off every architectural style in the kingdom at once, Romanesque and Gothic and baroque bolted together; the public liked it so much that it was rebuilt in stone.

Finish in the water. The big yellow baths across the park draw from a well sunk into hot rock beneath the city, run eighteen pools indoors and out, and the outdoor pools are open into the evening. Take flip-flops, take a towel, and give it three hours rather than one.

  1. 09:30

    Great Synagogue and the Jewish Museum

    Visit

    The largest synagogue in Europe, finished in 1859, seating nearly 3,000, with a Jewish museum on the site of Theodor Herzl's birthplace next door. The garden behind holds the graves of about 2,000 people who died in the ghetto and a steel willow inscribed with their names.

  2. 12:00

    Vajdahunyad Castle

    Historic

    A castle assembled from copies of buildings all over the old kingdom, put up in wood for the millennium exhibition of 1896 and rebuilt in stone by 1908 because nobody would let it be pulled down. Free to walk round, and the moat freezes into a skating rink in winter.

  3. 13:15

    Lunch in the park

    Eat

    There are kiosks by the boating lake and a couple of proper restaurants near the zoo gates. Eat lightly; you are about to spend three hours in warm water.

  4. 14:30

    Széchenyi Thermal Bath

    Leisure

    Eighteen pools in a yellow neo-baroque palace of 1913, fed from a well drilled deep under the park, with three large outdoor pools that stay open in the evening. Bring flip-flops and a towel or hire both. Buy online to skip the ticket queue at weekends.

With more time: If a big public bath is not your idea of a good afternoon, the Gellert baths on the Buda side are art nouveau, half the size and calmer, with a glass-roofed hall of blue and green Zsolnay tiles that is worth the entry on its own.

Day 9 in Budapest

An Ottoman bath at eight in the morning, then home

Budapest has been a spa town since the Romans and a Turkish one since the sixteenth century, and three of the Ottoman bath houses are still working. The one under the Buda hill was built in the 1550s under a Turkish governor, and its central pool sits in an octagon under a dome pierced with coloured glass, held up by eight columns, essentially unchanged.

Go at opening. It is quiet, hot, dim and completely unlike a modern spa, and there is a rooftop tub added in the last refit that looks straight up the river. Check the timetable before you go: the historic pool is men only on most weekdays, women only on one, and mixed at weekends.

After that, an hour is all you need to get out. The airport bus runs from Deak ter, the trains west leave from Keleti, and Vienna is two and a half hours back up the line if you would rather not fly at all.

  1. 08:00

    Rudas Thermal Bath

    Leisure

    An Ottoman bath of the 1550s with its original octagonal pool under a pierced dome on eight pillars, plus a modern rooftop tub facing the river. Historic section is single sex on weekdays and mixed at weekends, so check before you go. Opens at six.

  2. 10:45

    Breakfast on the Buda side

    Eat

    The cafes around Doebrentei ter do good coffee and a plate of cheese and paprika sausage, which is the correct thing to eat after a bath.

  3. 12:00

    To the airport or the station

    Travel

    The 100E bus runs from Deak ter to the airport in about forty minutes and takes a separate ticket. For onward trains, Vienna is two and a half hours, Prague seven, and Zagreb six.

Before you go

The two train journeys

Vienna to Bratislava runs about hourly from Wien Hauptbahnhof and takes an hour and five minutes. It is a regional train, not a fast one, and the day ticket that covers it also covers Bratislava's buses and trams, which is worth asking for by name at the counter.

Bratislava to Budapest is a EuroCity every two hours, two and a half hours to Budapest Keleti, running along the Danube through Slovak and then Hungarian flatland. Reserve if you are travelling on a Friday or Sunday; otherwise walk on.

There is also a fast boat between Vienna and Bratislava in summer, about seventy-five minutes down the river and rather more coming back. It costs several times the train fare and is a nice thing to do rather than a sensible way to travel.

Three countries, three currencies

Austria and Slovakia are both on the euro. Hungary is not, and shows no sign of joining: Budapest runs on the forint, and the exchange booths in the tourist streets are worse value than any bank machine. Cards work almost everywhere in all three cities.

The price gradient is steep and in your favour. A dinner that costs fifty euros in the first district of Vienna costs half that in the Bratislava old town and half again in a decent Budapest bistro three streets off Andrassy.

What to book

Almost nothing, which is part of why this trip works. Schoenbrunn sells timed tickets and does sell out in July and August, so buy the Grand Tour online the night before. The Vienna opera releases standing places at the box office ninety minutes before the performance and they cost less than a main course.

In Budapest the baths take walk-ins all year, though buying online skips the ticket queue at Szechenyi on a Saturday. Everything else on these nine days is a door you push open.

When to come

May, June and September. Vienna's terraces are open, the Danube is warm enough to look at rather than shudder at, and Budapest in August is genuinely hot in a way that ruins an afternoon of walking.

Winter has a case, and it is the baths. Sitting in a steaming outdoor pool in Budapest at two degrees, with your head cold and the rest of you not, is the single best thing on this route and it only works in the cold. All three cities also run large Christmas markets through December.

Three hundred kilometres, two train tickets and three cities that spent four hundred years in the same state and the last hundred apart. Vienna keeps the furniture, Budapest keeps the nerve, and Bratislava, which nobody flies to, keeps the coronation church where the whole arrangement was blessed.

Go in May or September if you want the terraces, in January if you want the outdoor pools steaming at two degrees, and take the train that leaves Vienna every hour.

Go deeper on one city

Each of these covers a single stop on this route in its own right.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

Copy to my trips

Common questions

Is Bratislava worth two nights, or is it a day trip from Vienna?
Most people do it as a day trip and come away saying there is nothing there, which is what happens when you arrive at eleven and leave at four having seen only the main square. Two nights buys the castle in the morning light, the ruin at Devin, which is half a day on its own and the most interesting thing in the region, and one evening when the terraces belong to people who live there. It is also the cheapest of the three cities by a wide margin.
Should I do this in the other direction, Budapest to Vienna?
It works either way. Going downstream as written puts the cheapest city in the middle and the liveliest at the end, and it means arriving in Budapest with the river in front of you rather than leaving it behind. Going the other way is better if you are flying home from Vienna, which usually has the wider choice of flights.
Do I need to book the trains?
No. The Vienna to Bratislava train runs hourly and takes anyone who turns up. The Bratislava to Budapest EuroCity runs every two hours and only needs a reservation on Friday and Sunday afternoons. Buy both at a station counter or on the operators' apps; neither route rewards booking months ahead the way German or Italian trains do.
Which Budapest bath should I choose if I only have time for one?
Szechenyi in the city park if you want the big outdoor pools, the steam and the chess players, which is the experience people picture. Gellert if you want tiled art nouveau halls and fewer stag parties. Rudas if you want the Ottoman one, which is the oldest and the strangest, and check its single-sex timetable first.
Can I copy this and change it?
Yes, and the two obvious edits are adding a fourth night in Vienna, which has more museums than any nine day trip can absorb, or adding two nights at the end for the Danube Bend north of Budapest, where Esztergom has the largest church in Hungary and Szentendre is forty minutes out on a suburban train.