The luxury one
FOUR SEASONS GRESHAM PALACE
In a city renowned for its art-nouveau treasures, why not stay in one? The
Gresham is a feast of melting stone, gilded facades, peacock gates and
stalactite chandeliers that was a ruin on the riverbank five years ago. It
was built in 1906 as the European office of the Gresham Life Assurance
Company, but wartime bombs, followed by a cash-strapped communist regime,
had left it rotting by the time Four Seasons took over in 1999. Four years
and £65m later, it reopened as the most luxurious of five-star hotels, with
all the stellar service and comfort you’d expect from the chain.
If you’re not staying, at least go for coffee and enjoy the priceless views
across to the Chain Bridge and Old Buda.
Doubles from £136, B&B; 00 36 1 268 6000,
www.fourseasons.com
The designer one
ART’OTEL
On the Buda side, supermodern meets 17th-century classic at the splendidly
incongruous Art’otel. The hotel is fronted by a seven-storey glass
structure, connected by glass walkways to four beautiful old town houses at
the back. And it works brilliantly. Then you have the art: Art’otel is part
of a group of hotel-galleries, each of which is adorned with the works of
one artist-auteur. The two in Berlin got Warhol and Baselitz; Budapest got
the American Donald Sultan, so it’s all cheerful colours and visual gags,
with a hidden bird sculpture in each room for good luck, a feng-shui water
fountain, domino carpets and fantasy playing-card crockery. Rooms at the
front have the best panoramic views across the Danube, while rooms in the
older section are more spacious.
Doubles from £136, B&B; 00 36 1 487 9487, www.artotel.de
The pummelling one
DANUBIUS HOTEL GELLERT
With all those thermal waters bubbling away under the city, you’d be mad not
to reap their benefits in a traditional spa. The Hotel Gellert is standard
stuff, sadly past its turn-of-the-century best, but the adjacent temple to
the healing and restorative powers of the springs is still an eye-wateringly
pleasurable experience. Hotel guests have unlimited free access to the spa
via a rickety lift. You will be ejected into the elaborately tiled and
vaporously echoey male or female baths, where the dress code is nude.
Treatments are no-nonsense, and Hungarians of all shapes and sizes queue for
a pummelling behind the white plastic curtain. Abandon your Anglo-Saxon
inhibitions and let it all hang out. You won’t regret it.
Doubles from £90, B&B; 00 36 1 889 5500,
www.danubiushotels.com ()
The budget one
HOTEL KULTURINNOV
As you pant your way up Buda’s cobbled streets into the walled Castle Hill
district, you’ll enter a realm of medieval churches and castles. Part of the
old town was home to commoners in the Middle Ages, but these days it’s a
different story. You have to be minted to own a property up here. So it is
perhaps the last place you’d expect to find cheap accommodation. Hidden in
the bowels of the ornate and stately Hungarian Culture Foundation is a
little secret: the Hotel Kulturinnov. Its 16 rooms are set off a wide
L-shaped corridor and the atmosphere is relaxed and studenty, with
unmodernised 1980s decor. It’s a far cry from the Hilton over the way, but
who cares when you’re living amid such cultural riches for peanuts?
Doubles from £44, B&B; 00 36 1 224 8100, www.mka.hu
The classic one
CORINTHIA GRAND HOTEL ROYAL
In 1896, when the Grand Hotel Royal opened as the city’s first five-star
hotel, it was at the centre of bohemian high society — the Algonquin of
central Europe. Stars from the nearby Academy of Music and opera house
partied in the gold- and marble-encrusted ballroom, but as the 20th century
wore on, and it was destroyed and rebuilt, its glory faded to an
unceremonious closure in 1991. In 2003, a radical design overhaul was
completed and now it sparkles once again. Breezy glass atriums, ceilings and
suspended bridges cling to the classical facade: it’s all a bit Louvre
pyramid. Rooms are designed in plush, classical, muted colours, the highest
floors getting the most light and the best views.
Doubles from £260, room-only (weekend rates from £77); 00 36 1 479 4000,
www.corinthiahotels.com
I want to go
Getting there: Harriet Perry travelled as a guest of Malev
Airlines (0870 9090577, www.malev.hu), which flies from Heathrow, Cork and
Dublin. British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com) flies from Heathrow and
Gatwick; EasyJet (www.easyjet.com) flies from Gatwick, Luton, Bristol and
Newcastle; Jet2 (0871 226 1737, www.jet2.com) flies from Manchester; and
SkyEurope (www.skyeurope.com) flies from Stansted. Airport minibuses drop
off and pick up at your hotel (20 minutes each way, £9 return).
Further information: call the Hungarian National Tourist
Office on 00800 3600 0000 or visit www.gotohungary.co.uk.
