Blogpost contains unsponsored ads ( Restaurants etc.). These are all my personal recommendations based on my experience in Budapest, Hungary. I don’t get paid for mentioning any of these places.
Hello and welcome back to Aperture & Wanderlust!
Today I will be sharing with you my favourite food places in Budapest and tell you about traditional foods you need to try. As I’ve been vegetarian for six years, and mainly eat plant based if I have the choice (I know, you always have a choice, but this post is not supposed to debate the pros and cons of different diets or lifestyles), these recommendations are especially suitable for people who prefer a plant based, or vegetarian diet.
Hummus Bar – Hummus is sexy!
I really loved the food chain called „Hummus Bar“. They offer a variety of hummus based dishes, and they have many vegan and vegetarian options. It is really delicious, especially because they serve warm pita bread with the hummus and you can also have lots of Tahini (love it!) and enjoy Falafels, fresh vegetables and more! I have to admit, during the four and a half days I spent in Budapest, I went there THREE (!!) times! Absolutely loved it! You will get a big hummus plate with warm pita and veggies for only 1990 HUF (5.89 EUR – 6.47 USD – 5.00 GBP)!
Wow, I’m actually getting pretty hungry writing this post…
Napfényes Étterem – a completely vegan restaurant
Napfényes Étterem is a completely plant-based, aka – vegan restaurant. You can either sit down and enjoy a warm meal, have a sweet snack or buy some vegan cake to go! It is not particularly expensive but not super cheap either. However, it is a real restaurant with kind waitresses and waiters and the interior design is really beautiful! I actually felt pretty fancy there :D!
Las Vegan’s Budapest
Las Vegan’sis a vegan Burger/Fast Food place. They offer a variety of burgers, vegan nuggets, smoothies, potatoes and more. It was really delicious! You will get a burger for around 2000 HUF!
Street Food Karaván Budapest
Karaván Budapest is a small Street Food Market in the former jewish quarter of Pest, right in front of the Las Vegan’s restaurant and the Szimpla Kert Ruin Bar. They have different food trucks offering Langós, Chimney Cake, Asian dishes and there is also a Las Vegan’s burger truck. Great thing if you are travelling in a group, I am sure everyone will find something delicious to eat at Karaván!
I found this café by accident and fell in love with the interior design. They actually have a swing you can sit on while enjoying your juice or your „rawsome“ cake. They only sell raw vegan and organic food.
Chimney Cake
Chimney Cake is a must-try when you visit Budapest. You can get it on the Christmas markets or go to a Chimney Cake Café. I decided to get one with salted caramel ice cream in it and enjoyed a nice black coffee with it. I am actually pretty glad that I sat down while eating this, since I am really bad at eating on the go and it is not particularly easy to eat (-to my mind…maybe I am just bad at multi-tasking!).
Chocolate Chip Chimney Cake with Salted Caramel Ice Cream!
Lángos
Unfortunately I don’t have a good-looking picture of Langós and I just realised that the lady is preparing something like a potato fritter instead.
Langós is another thing you need to try when you are going to visit Hungary. You probably know it from your local Christmas market, since it is already well known, at least in Germany. If you have not heard of Langós yet, it is a fried dough that is usually topped with sour cream and grated cheese. However, there are multiple other versions available, I got one with Nutella for example, which was super delicious!
Central Market
Have you ever heard of Sajtos Pogácsa? It is something like a cheese scone and – oh my goodness – it is so good! I went to the Central Marketto try them and got a whole bag for only one or two euros. If you want to eat on a budget, the Central Market is the right place for you!
This is the zero waste grocery shopping heaven!
New York Palace / New York Café
The New York Palace is a well-known luxury hotel on the Grand Boulevard in Budapest and the New York Café, the restaurant on the ground floor, is often recommended in city guides due to its beautiful interior design. To be honest, I did not go in there, I was not very keen to pay 7€ for a coffee. I therefore cannot give you any information on the food and drinks since I just admired the beautiful ceiling from the outside.
As you can see, Budapest has many great restaurants and cafés for the vegan and vegetarian gourmet and I will not lie – I spent most of my money in Budapest (besides from the flight and the accommodation) on food. 😀
Thank you for reading and let me know if you have more food recommendations for this beautiful city!
Blogpost contains unsponsored ads (Hostels, Restaurants etc.). These are all my personal recommendations based on my experience in England. I don’t get paid for mentioning any of these places.
Long time ago in 2018, (can’t believe it’s already 2020 and I haven’t posted this article earlier) my dad and I decided to go an a road trip to England.
We drove my little, at least 24 year old, VW Golf Three Cabriolet to Calais and took the ferry to Dover. We had to book the ferry in advance and since my dad and I are usually not „over punctual“, we were fearing we might miss the ferry, which was not particular cheap to be honest. Fortunately, we made it on time and enjoyed the ride to England while at least half of the cars where honking because their alarms got off due to the movement of the ferry.
The White Cliffs of Dover, arriving at the P&O Dover Ferry terminal
After twenty minutes, we could see the the beautiful and well known White Cliffs of Dover. I am definitely obsessed with rocks, cliffs and mountains, therefore, approaching the cliffs was really amazing to me. It didn’t take us too long to get off the ferry and we decided to drive uphill and go for a short walk. We parked the car on a car park near the Visitor Center Langdon Cliffs and wandered around the green meadows on top of the cliffs.
View on Dover Harbour Dover Castle
We had a great view on Dover Castle and enjoyed the last rays of sunlight, the view on the sea and the fresh and salty air.
As the sun was beginning to set, we decided to drive through the city of Dover, in order to drive to Folkestone, a small city near Dover where our hotel was located. If we saw a nice spot, we would just stop, wander around, take a picture and then go on. Since we hadn’t really planned the trip, we had time to relax and go wherever we wanted.
The hotel we booked a day earlier was the Southcliff Hotel, I nice and inexpensive hotel, that offered English and continental breakfast as well.
Folkestone
Hummus and Falafel at the Aspendos Restaurant
The receptionist recommended the Aspendos Restaurant to us, a Turkish restaurant that offers a great variety of delicious dishes and has inside and outside seating options. I had hummus and falafel and they also served us fresh pita (I think it was pita…) bread. To be honest, I think this was just the starter but I can’t remember what I had as a main dish.
The next day we left after breakfast and continued our trip, driving along the coast, seeing many nice places and beautiful houses. I really love the „typical“ English houses with the red bricks and the cute chimneys.
After a short stop at a beach, we eventually arrived at our next destination, which I will talk about in the next England Road Trip post.
Quick stop at a beach on the way to our next destination.
We really enjoyed Folkestone as a place to spend the night. The hotels there were definitely cheaper than in Dover, the atmosphere was nice and the view on the sea was amazing! We also spend our last night before heading back to Germany in the same hotel and tried another restaurant, which I can highly recommend, called The Meze House. It is a greek restaurant located almost next to the Southcliff Hotel in a street called „Shakespeare Terrace“– and the food was great! I absolutely fell in love with Halloumi fries and we eventually ordered them twice, since even my dad loved them, although he always referred to Halloumi as the „Squeaking Cheese“ and never really enjoyed it… until that point … :)!
The Meze House, such a beautiful interior design!
Stay tuned for the upcoming articles about our little „England Road Trip Adventure“, I hope you enjoyed reading this!
Blogpost contains unsponsored ads (Airlines, Hostels, Restaurants etc.). These are all my personal recommendations based on my experience in Lisbon, Portugal. I don’t get paid for mentioning any of these places.
Welcome back to my „Exploring Lisboa“ series. If you haven’t read the first article, click here. To give you some background information, I arrived on a Sunday afternoon and left the following Wednesday in the evening. I therefore spent around 72 hours in Lisbon, which is around two complete days plus the day of arrival and departure where I was able to explore some things too.
Today I will share with you what I’ve done that Monday, I’ve tackled some of the most famous sights in Lisbon that day, which is the Elevador de Santa Justa, the Tram 28, the Castelo de São Jorge, the historic district of Alfama, the Pink Street and the Time Out Market.
Elevador de Santa Justa
My first stop that day was the Elevador de Santa Justa. It is an elevator that was originally built to connect the streets of Baixa with the district Chiado. This vertical lift is a famous tourist attraction, if you want to use the lift, you will have to wait approximately thirty minutes, since the queue is usually pretty long. Additionally, it will cost you some money to use the elevator to go up, I will link you a website with further information about the prices here.
Well, I wasn’t very keen to spend my time in Lisbon, waiting for an elevator, so I decided to look for bridge that connects the elevator with the upper streets. If you walk past the actual elevator and walk up the street, there will be stairs to your right at some point that will lead you up to the Chiado district from where you can access the bridge that is connected to the first platform of the elevator. It is definitely worth to walk up there and enjoy the view, even though there are better viewpoints in Lisbon, as you will read later in this post.
I simply love listening to street musicians! There are so many young, creative people in Lisbon!
The Tram 28 disaster
Lisbon is known for its little trams that connect the different districts of the city. The most popular one is the wooden Tram 28 which goes from Martim Moniz to Campo Ourique, passing many historic districts, including Graça, Baixa, Alfama and the Bairro Alto. It will take you to many beautiful places in Lisbon but be prepared to stand in line for a long time.
When I arrived at Martim Moniz, I was pretty happy to see that there were only two girls in front of me waiting for the tram. When they were about to enter, a man got in their way and pointed towards an at least 150m long queue of people, all waiting to enter the historic tram. No way was I gonna wait for so long to stand in a tram full of people and likely being pick pocketed. I therefore decided to walk to my next destination, which was the Castelo de São Jorge. Right behind the Tram 28 station I found escalators, surrounded by beautiful residential buildings covered with gorgeous tiles. These escalators will take you uphill and you can give your legs some rest, while enjoying the view! Of course you can take a tram to the Castelo, but I really enjoyed my walk, since I found many nice photo spots, and little shops selling unique Portuguese souvenirs.
On my way to the Castelo I haven’t met many people but when I spotted more tourists, I knew I was getting close. In front of the Castelo were some artists, selling their art work like the man in the picture who created unique art using coffee as colour. However, most impressive to me where the two guys who played music with their instruments, called Hand Pans. I really enjoyed listening to their music and bought their CDs to support them. They met in Lisbon, one of them is Spanish, the other one from Berlin. I just love the idea of two individual artists meeting and uniting, creating new pieces of music together, supporting each other and enjoying themselves, which is quite good to see in the picture I guess.
Castelo de São Jorge
I stood in line for around ten minutes maximum, but depending on when your planning to visit the Castelo, you might have to wait longer. However, it is definitely worth it! If you are between thirteen and twenty-five years old, you will pay only 5€ for the entry, if you are older you will pay 10€.
The castle complex, surrounded by a garden, provides you with castle walls to walk on, and old towers to climb. You will be exposed to one- or maybe THE most beautiful view in Lisbon. You can see the whole city from different viewpoints in that area, it is simply amazing! However, I would recommend wearing closed shoes with a good profile, since the steps up the castle are quite steep and might be slippery.
The streets of beautiful Alfama
After having visited the Castelo de São Jorge, I decided to explore the historic district Alfama, which is recommended in every travel guide. On my way I found this greek looking spot with a man playing the guitar and singing. I sat down for a while and just enjoyed the fact that I was travelling by myself, that I could do whatever I wanted and I was extremely grateful and extremely happy. It was a wonderful feeling!
However, I think my expectations for Alfama where a little too high. I don’t even know what exactly I expected but it is still a gorgeous district of the city. I adore the tiles of the buildings, and just the atmosphere, there are many small and sometimes hidden restaurants. I haven’t even seen many tourists but instead some locals who always smiled back when I smiled at them. To my mind, it just felt so different, so relaxed, so kind.
An encounter that’s typical for solo travel
My next destination was the Pink Street, but on my way I discovered a cute little place that was very appealing, called Basilio Café. I ordered a green juice and just came back from the bathroom when I saw a young woman sitting on my place, next to my backpack which I had left there, hoping the Portuguese would say something if someone wanted to take it. I mean, it was a small café full of locals and the waitress even talked to me in Portuguese. Anyways, I told the girl that I was sitting there and she apologized and was about to leave when I asked her if she was on her own. She agreed and I asked her if she wanted to sit with me. That is how I met Sarah. She grew up in London and spent some days in Lisbon, and we chatted for at least an hour in that café. I was really happy that I had asked her to stay, since we had a great conversation and she is such an engaged and inspiring young woman. This is what I love about travelling by myself, I think we wouldn’t have met if I had been travelling with someone else.
„You just need a street and a couple of buckets with pink paint to create a tourist attraction.“
Sarah and I decided to go to the Pink Street together, it is near the Cais do Sodré station and pretty easy to find, even though it isn’t too long. It is really funny how „easy“ it is, to create a tourist attraction, just paint the street pink! Okay this isn’t quite true in this case. The street used to be Lisbon’s red light district and was originally called Rua Nova do Carvalho. Today you will find many bars and restaurants there, it is one of the places to go to if you want to go on a night out.
Me, standing on the Pink Street, my face matching the colour of the street, super exhausted :D!
Time Out Market
It was time for Sarah to leave to catch her flight home and I decided to grab a drink at the Time Out Market, a huge food court with many different food options available. International food, typical Portuguese food, Wine, a Bar and next to the food court there is a big grocery market where the locals buy their greens, meat, fish and more. Good thing about this place: If you travel in a large group, everyone will find something to eat!
Have you ever heard of Pastéis de Nata? It is a Portuguese speciality made of egg yolks and topped with cinnamon. At first, I thought it was something with cheese, until I tasted it. It was super weird, as I was expecting something salty and it turned out to taste sweet, actually reminded me of cheesecake or something with pudding. It wasn’t really my thing but I’m glad I gave it a try!
I finished my day with a pizza at Jamie’s Pizza. I mean, I had pizza at a Jamie Oliver restaurant, to me, that’s pretty amazing!
I hope you enjoyed reading about my second day in Lisbon. I’d love to hear your feedback and Lisbon travel tips!
Have you watched „Night at the Museum“? I did and I therefore had to visit the American Museum of Natural History. By the way, this was the last official weekend off we had. It therefore was the last weekend I spent with my co-councilors – time went by so fast that summer!
Before we headed to the AMNH, we went to Times Square where I bought some drumsticks at Hard Rock Cafe for my brother and we spent some time on the streets of Manhattan and also visited Central Park.
Strolling around in Central Park
We arrived at the American Museum of Natural History around noon and getting closer the counter, we realised that it is up to the visitor how much one wants to pay. They have a payment recommendation of $18 but the least you have to pay is $1. There were three girls in front of us who all paid only $1 and to be honest, in that situation, I considered that as pretty rude. They did not look like they were not able to pay the usual entrance fee and personally I think that if you are able to, you should pay the recommended fee, or at least a couple of dollars just to pay tribute to the museum, its staff, its donors etc.
The famous Tyrannosaurus!
The museum itself has many different exhibitions, the first one we visited was one about the African continent and informed visitors about wildlife and plants. I could not get this scenario of lions jumping out of the windows at night out of my head. There was also a polar/marine exhibition with a life-sized blue whale hanging from the ceiling. It was stunning!
In addition to all the wildlife on exhibition, they also informed visitors about the evolution of mankind and demographic change, it was super interesting!
Last but not least we went to the dinosaur and fossil segment and it was really breathtaking, imagining that these creatures actually existed and ran around on the planet. I can highly recommend the AMNH to EVERYBODY! Kids will love it, you will see tons of dinosaur skeletons, you will learn a lot and I promise- it will not get boring!
Kale, Salad, Quinoa, Falafel, Avocado and more!
In the evening, before heading back to Long Island, we went to Apple Bee’s. Unfortunately we were not really into their menu and therefore went to another little salad bar/deli and got some nice salad quinoa falafel bowls. It was delicious but I sadly forgot the name of the place…For desert we went to M&Ms world and got our personal M&M colour analysed. I am green! It was a fun experience but I do not recommend buying M&Ms there, it is unbelievably expensive!
Good night New York City!
I definitely enjoyed my last weekend in Manhattan. Now there is only one activity in NYC left that I have not already talked about- so stay tuned!
This is the second part of my „What we ate in Australia“ series. Some pictures were still taken in Darwin but the other half of the meals are the ones we cooked while we were travelling down the east coast. Problem was that you can’t carry to many groceries while travelling. Additionally we were on a tighter budget and consequently had a lot of pasta. (ca. 1$ per meal) 😁
Self-made christmas cookies in Darwin, while it was 35 degrees celsius outside…Asian inspired soup with a poached eggNachos with guacamole in a mallOur last dinner in Darwin with avocado sushi…this dinner was so expensive since we had salted caramel chocolate as well 😅Couscous with cucumber and tomatoesRice cake with banana and peanut butter for breakfastPasta with cheese and tomato sauceThis is a not so good looking potato-egg-capsicum saladThe aesthetically least pleasing meal we cooked – rice with Indian chick pea sauceVegan and gluten free pancakes in Rainbow Beach for breakfastThis salad was so delicious! Rice, corn, cucumber, onions, lemon and spicesWe always carried lime juice, Italian dressing, salt and pepper with us while we were travelling the east coast
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