Budapest Travel Forum

hello
i have an option to choose mercure buda or mercure korona.

korona is in the center of town and buda close to the castle.

buda is cheaper but i am not sure about the transportation and attractions and restaurants in the area.

please suggest.
thanks
ophir

The mercure buda is a long way from too much of Budapest. There is excellent public transportation and there is a local guy on this site that can probably tell you exactly what bus, tram, subways to take to get around. But do you want to spend all of your time on public transportation - even Excellent public transportation. Mercure Buda has a better (much better) rating on Tripadvisior.com than does the Mercure Korona, but the Pest hotel is in a not half bad location - a little far out, but doable. Maybe the local guy will tell you more about the neighborhoods for each. I am guessing this is some sort of package deal and you dont have many choices?

Pest is slightly better as most attractions are within walking distance, but the Buda location also has good transportation (both are close to metro stations and a number of bus and tram lines with at least one always running in the best direction :) ) Restaurant numbers are higher near the Pest location. There's good night transportation at both locations, so you can not make a bad decision.

Hello!

I would recommend the Hotel Korona. The Mercure Buda is a four star hotel as well, but it will much more time to get around from there (though it is not really hard). I am not sure how it is at Hotel Korona, if a breakfast is included, but I know that at the Mercure Buda they normally not include a breakfast, and you have to pay 16 or 18 euro in addition to get it.

The Mercure Buda is close to the castle, but it is not that close, so seen from the perspective of attractions and restaurants the Hotel Korona is a sure winner. So if the price is not incredibly different, I would go for the Hotel Korona. You can even enjoy the sight of how they are building the 4th underground on the square outside the Hotel Korona in that case (the Kalvin Square).

You will even live quite close to where I live then :) If you need more help, just write!

Listen to Danbo. He lives there. I might caution to get a courtyard room given the other advice that "You can even enjoy the sight of how they are building the 4th underground on the square outside the Hotel Korona in that case (the Kalvin Square)."

I stayed at the Hotel Buda Mercure back in 2002. I was very pleased with the hotel. I had an incredible view of Castle Hill, I enjoyed the included breakfast (don't know if it is still included), and used their indoor swimming pool. To get to Castle Hill, I just walked across the park out front and climbed a set of stairs (not too strenuous). I used the funicular to go down the other side. That took care of my Castle Hill sightseeing.

The hotel is also steps away from the train station / metro station. I did not use these trains / subways, but according to Google Earth, the station is: Déli pályaudvar (Southern Railway Station) is the western terminus of the M2 (East-West) line of the Budapest Metro. It serves the Déli Railway Station and its vicinity.

A check of Wikipedia makes it appear that this station provides good connections to the city. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest_Metro

There were no attractions in the immediate vicinity of the Hotel Buda Mercure but I did walk to local restaurants each evening for dinner.

Enjoy Budapest. It is a wonderful place to stay.