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Budapest has a reputation for some of the best nightlife in all of Europe. I am not a big fan of clubbing, but I do enjoy hanging out in cool bars and watching all the people. Budapest is excellent for that. It has some of the coolest and largest bars I’ve ever been to and provides great vantage points for people watching.

There’s one I particularly enjoyed called Szimpla Kert. The interior is out of a movie set. In fact, it’s probably the coolest looking place I’ve ever been. Planet of the Apes played on a projector screen. A couch and some chairs were made from cutting old bath tubs up and putting cushions on them.

There was another place we went that I think was just an abandoned building that had been made into a dance bar. Only the top couple of floors were open and the rest was shut. So you had to walk up about 4 flights of stairs to even get there. But they had a really cool rooftop bar from which you could look out on the city.

There’s a neat little restaurant called Kiado Kocsma! that stays busy with students eating and drinking. There’s crazy kitch all over the walls. It’s like the basement of 1000 grandparents’ houses put together in Europe. Some good, weird music played the whole time I was there. It was quite nice and they have some tasty goulash.