Short visit to Budapest

[minty]

I am joining my husband at the tail end of his work trip to Budapest. We will have three days, and we have both been too busy to do much research before now.
Any recommendations for must-dos?
We love food, and we love just walking around.
Anything that might be of interest that we would need to book in advance?
TIA!!

[cattledogkisses]

We spent 5 days there last year.

We did a lot of walking and biking around the city center and along the river. The Parliament building is beautiful. We went up to Buda Castle and did the tour there. We went to the big central market hall, and it was just before Easter when we were there so some stalls were selling hand-painted eggs, which was neat. We went out to the ruin pubs one night. Walked up to the Citadella, which has a beautiful view of the city. We went to the thermal baths on our last day, which ended up feeling amazing after doing so much walking.

Off the top of my head, places we ate that we really liked: Konyvbar & Restaurant and Kiosk Budapest.

ETA:  We went to Fisherman's Bastion too.

[GilliC]

If you're into gourmet dining, restaurants in Budapest are relatively inexpensive, so it's a great place to eat high end. Onyx and Costes both get consistently good reviews. We also had a good dinner at Bock Bistro (owned by the brother of the winemaker in Villány). (Reservations are probably a good idea at any of them, especially on weekends.)

At the advice of one of my good friends in Budapest, we went out to Memento Park and joined the English tour. It was extremely interesting, and surprisingly humorous, given the gravity of the history.

I also really enjoyed the Széchenyi baths, partly because I like soaking myself in hot water, but also for the architecture and history of the place. I've heard that the Gellért baths are smaller and a bit nicer, but I found the massive scale of the Széchenyi baths fascinating.

We did a few self-guided walking tours, one in the area around Buda and the castle, and one to see some of the architecture in Pest. I'm pretty sure we followed a route laid out in the DK Eyewitness guidebook, but I'm not 100% certain. I might have just printed them off the Frommer's website.