One bedroom holiday (vacation) rental apartment in Budapest, Hungary

Staying with grannie. Well, that was what it felt like.

I booked an apartment online from Budapest Tourist Apartments, via Booking.com for seven nights in Budapest, Hungary.

We caught a bus from the train station to the address on the booking form.
There were a couple of security guards there. We showed them the address we’d written down. He said it was not that building. He was very helpful, using his mobile to call the letting agent for us.
I spoke to the agent, he told me I was at the wrong address. I said it was the address on the booking form, he said our apartment was not in that building. He said he’d send a taxi to collect us and take us to the apartment.

We were very tired, and not really with it, so assumed that we had got the address of the apartment wrong.
It was only later, too late, when we were in the apartment that I checked the booking form and saw that the address that I had actually booked was the other side of town, in a much better area.

We arrived at the apartment the letting agent had said was the correct address, after much driving this way and that as the taxi dodged the many oneway streets.
Thankfully the agent paid the taxi, because as far as we were concerned we had been at the correct address.
The letting agent showed us inside the building, we walked up a couple of flights of stairs to the apartment.

When we stepped inside the apartment the first thing we noticed was the smell of dog. The strong doggy odour was quickly followed by our surprise at the large amount of clutter all over the apartment.
In our travel weary state we thought the unconventional appearance of the apartment was because it was heavily overdressed – from a car boot sale, garage sale.
It wasn’t until the letting agent had hastily made his getaway, and we had a proper look round the apartment, that we realised we were not in a conventional holiday rental, we were in fact in someones home. Someone’s grannies home.

It was now obvious why the letting agent had been so rapid showing us round the apartment. He obviously hasn’t wanted us to realise we’d been stitched up like a kipper.
There was absolutely nowhere to unpack our belongings, every surface was completely covered with clutter, all of the wardrobes, of which there were ample for ten people, were packed to the gills.
Just about the only free surfaces available were a couple of small armchairs in the lounge, and a little bit of the floor surrounding them. So, that is where we unpacked our belongings and left them, on the chairs, and on the floor.

The kitchen was a very small room, which was even more cluttered than the rest of the apartment.
There was a small room off of a part of the kitchen, which had a bed in it. I’m not sure how you’d get in to that room though as there was a small dining table with four chairs in front of the beaded curtain door-way.
The dining table and chairs were pretty much unusable. It wouldn’t have been comfortable sitting there. We just used the table top for storage, as it was the only decent storage space in the kitchen.
The owner of the flat had cleared out two shelves and the crisper in the fridge. The only useable work surface in the kitchen was tiny, about 50 metres square.
There was a gas cooker, of which we only used the top, as using the oven would have been too awkward because the kitchen was so narrow.
The double sink had a small dish-drainer unit perched on one side. This was the only place for washed plates, cutlery etc. We had managed to find what we needed to use after a lot of looking through the cluttered cupboards and drawers.
We never put anything away after use though because we couldn’t remember where we’d found anything. We’ve never seen so much stuff in such a small space. The kitchen was seriously chaotic.

The long narrow hall between the kitchen and the living room had wardrobes all along one wall. They were completely full of things, and had lots of things piled on top of them too.

The living room was a decent size, but not particularly comfortable.
There was a sofa unit in one corner of the room, the two armchairs we used as a wardrobe, a small table, a desk and office style chair, and lots of other furniture including heavy wooden shelf units and a sideboard on top of which was a flatscreen TV. There were not any English TV language channels, just the basic local channels, apart from the CNN News channel.
Occasionally we managed to find an English language film on either the MGM or TCM channels.

The bedroom was a good size room with a small balcony overlooking the street below. The double bed was uncomfortable, the mattress had a thin foam mattress topper on it. The pillows were not really pillows, just various sized pieces of foam shoved inside pillow cases. They were very uncomfortable and smelt musty.
The bedroom also had a desk and office chair, as well as a coffee table, book shelf dresser unit, and large fitted wardrobes which were unusable as they were packed solid.

The bathroom was very cramped, and became even more so when halfway through our stay the top loading washing machine was replaced with a larger front loading machine.
We didn’t use either washing machine, as there was not really anywhere suitable to dry clothes.
The bath, which had a shower over it, was old and mouldy.
Liked the rest of the apartment there was stuff everywhere in the bathroom. No surface was free of aftershave bottles, shampoos, soaps, candles, toothbrushes, and various other toiletries.
There were a couple of towels on the edge of the bath when we arrived. We assumed they and been put there four us to use. The towels were old and very musty, nasty.
The water was hot though, and the water pressure was strong.

The loo was a seriously small room. It wasn’t really comfortable to close the door as our knees would have been squashed up against the door.

The location of the apartment was obviously not where we wanted to be, nor was it were we’d booked to be.
Having said that, it was right next to the Corvin Plaza shopping centre and Corvin Setany, which had a couple of restaurants and places to drink.
The apartment had WiFi which was reasonably fast.

We rarely book longer than 4 nights anywhere we stay. Unfortunately booking 7 nights this time was a big mistake. The whole point of us booking to stay in an apartment rather than a hotel is to relax and cook. This apartment was not suitable for either, when we were in it all we wanted to do was get out of it.
Both of us were wishing the time to go fast because this apartment was not what we’d booked in any way, shape, or form.
A throughly disappointing stay at a Budapest Tourist Apartment let, which more or less ruined our time in Budapest, Hungary.