Inside Hostel Budapest — Hotel in Budapest

This lovely, spacious place felt more like a private apartment than a hostel or hotel. After staying in various places in Budapest and Szeged, and spending more time going out than staying in - in some places because the rooms, though perfectly comfortable, were not light or large enough to encourage doing nothing - the room here and the whole place was refreshing: the spaciousness and quiet meant that we could happily sit around, read, relax or just lie in bed. Other places provide a place to sleep in between activity: this place felt more like being at home.||||The reception is not usually staffed, which we didn't know: but on arrival from Szeged, and finding no-one there, we made a phone-call and someone arrived within 10 minutes to let us in and explain what we needed to know (I think they did try to contact us previously, but our UK phones didn't always get good reception and we spent a lot of time on trains). After that we were left alone to enjoy our stay; being given the run of a deserted, beautifully-renovated and adapted classic Budapest apartment felt very relaxing. The management were a phone-call away in case of any problems (there were none), and the very friendly owner dropped in at one point and checked that everything was OK.||||It turned out that there were a few other people staying there, but we exchanged hellos and let them get on with their cooking before using the kitchen ourselves - I suspect they were also enjoying relaxing in their own space.||||3 bathrooms, all shared as far as I know, and beautifully done, with excellent shower and the impression that they were redecorated only a week before. Good washing machine, which was important after a week on the road.||||Now the best thing: our room had two windows, one facing onto the nagykörút, which is called József körút at this point, but the other faces south(ish) onto a square or rather triangle with grass and a couple of statues (including one that seems to be of a dog ripping a boy's trousers off), and is not a window but doors onto a private balcony. There's nothing better than sitting on a balcony eating a meal in the sun and watching the world and the trams go by (this takes a while, as the trams on this route are getting longer and longer; eventually there will be just one kilometres-long tram encircling the whole of Pest, like an electric yellow snake preparing its first meal for months). Because of this odd widening of the avenue/körút at this point, the view is spacious, and it's pleasant to just sit in the room with the doors open.||||For food and drink, there's a PennyMarket on the ground floor right underneath, another shop on the next corner which keeps its beer in the fridge, and a 0-24 tobacco/various shop across the road. A friend who's lucky enough to live round the corner recommends the market a few 100m away at Rákóczi tér, by the new metro station - for transport, either that or Corvinnegyed on line 3 are within easy walking distance. A short way along Krúdy utca - Inside is on the corner of this and the main road - the street is pedestrianised, with loads of bars and restaurants.||||The trams on the main street run 24h, which is great for travel (except on St Stephen's day, when what seems to be a large percentage of the population of Hungary stream away from the Danube after the fireworks and the traffic just gives up and waits!). The tram tracks are also used by ambulances and police-cars to cut through the traffic.||||The rooms are double-glazed, and there are shutters you can lower: but this is a place on one of the main streets of a big city, with inevitable big-city sounds. Personally I found this background soothing, especially after the quiet of Szeged out of university term-time. The spaciousness and comfortable environment inside (high ceilings, large rooms) made this outside noise far less intrusive than it might sound.||||If you really want the sound of silence, I recommend Böne Vendégház in Tokaj (which has far more than quiet going for it): but that's not in Budapest! In the city, I couldn't have...

We stopped for 9 nights spanning the Grand Prix weekend. The owners were there to meet us and explained everything that we needed to know about the hostel. ||When it was booked we hadn't realised that it was a hostel so were stood outside for a while trying to figure out where it was! ||We had booked the whole hostel as their were 8 of us (it actually holds 14) so there was plenty of space and having a reception desk in the lounge area was actually fun!||There are a few drawbacks as an apartment (some of these are an advantage for a hostel)||1. Tiny kitchen. We would get rid of breakfast bar and make the kitchen bigger and put an oven in|2. Very noisy at night the tram stop is right by the building (advantage for transport) but some of them run through the night. Also many drivers like to blow their car horns and sirens were going off throughout the night.||3. Not enough fans. Would be better with ceiling fans as it was so hot that we had to sleep with windows open which made point 2 worse as closed windows would have reduced the noise.||4. Because people thought it was still in use as a hostel we had calls as late as midnight asking for accommodation or backpackers entering the building asking for rooms!||If I came to Budapest looking for a hostel I would be ecstatic if I ended up here. As a hostel its 5 out of 5 as an apartment 4 out of 5 for the reasons above so overall 4.5 stars I think is a good score for the accomdation, unfortunately you can't give half scores so I've...

Before our arrival I made some arrangements with Peter who was always kind and helpful. The hostel is nto easy to find but fortunately another guest let us in. (It's in the same building as the penny supermarket.) We had to wait a while for Peter who got stuck in traffic which is (with the 10 € late check-cin fee) the only negative thing I can say about this hostel. Everything else was extraordinary! Apparently it's a hostel for groups so the rooms a quite big. We were just two people and had a h-u-g-e 4 bed room on the first floor. There is a small kitchen and everything seems quite modern in a nice IKEA style. The whole atmosphere is more like a shared flat than a hostel. We stayed there around the Hungarian national holiday but for some reason there were not a lot of other guests so we enjoyed a quiet and clean stay. As I already mentioned, Peter is very helpful but usually there is nobody at the reception. It's a great hostel to be left alone and manage your own stay in Budapest. If you want to meet other backpackers or get regular advice or particiapte in typical hostel activities, it's not the...