Four day trips from Budapest worth the train fare

Budapest holds three days comfortably. If you have more, these are the four that repay the journey — all reachable and returnable in a day by public transport.

Szentendre — 40 minutes

The easiest. A baroque riverside town of narrow lanes, Serbian Orthodox churches and a great many galleries, reached by the HÉV suburban railway from Batthyány tér. It is unashamedly touristic and still worth it; go on a weekday and walk uphill away from the main street within ten minutes of arriving.

The Danube Bend — a day

North of Szentendre the river turns sharply west, and the stretch through Visegrád and Esztergom is the most dramatic scenery within reach of the city. Visegrád has a hilltop citadel with a view along both arms of the bend; Esztergom has the largest church in Hungary and was the country's first capital.

Doable by bus, train or — better in summer — by boat.

Eger — 2 hours

A baroque town in the north with a castle famous for a 1552 siege in which a vastly outnumbered garrison held off an Ottoman army, and a wine region attached. The Szépasszony-völgy, the Valley of the Beautiful Women, is a horseshoe of cellars cut into the hillside where you taste directly from the barrel. Egri Bikavér — Bull's Blood — is the wine everyone has heard of; the whites are better.

Lake Balaton — 1.5 to 3 hours

Central Europe's largest lake, and in summer the entire country's holiday. The north shore is volcanic hills, wine and quieter towns — Tihany, on a peninsula, with an abbey and lavender fields; the south shore is flat, shallow and where the crowds go.

A day trip works, but Balaton genuinely rewards an overnight. In winter it is largely closed.

Getting there

Trains leave from Keleti, Nyugati and Déli, depending on direction. Buy at the station or through the national railway's app, and check the return time before you commit — regional services thin out considerably in the evening.