Covid-19 related news of Hungary and the Free Budapest Walking Tours Team

As usual, we are coming up with a fresh blog article about what is happening with the Coronavirus pandemic and our daily free walking tours in Budapest:

• Firstly, our free tours are still not running in the Hungarian capital city, we are planning to reopen them in the middle of July! Stay tuned for up-to-date information shared here and on our Facebook page as well!
• Regarding the Covid-19 pandemic we can say that the situation is quite okay in Hungary and Budapest right now. The vaccination went quite well (using past tense, because there’s not a lot of people left who want to take the vaccination, most of those who wanted it, got it already…) about 5 376 000 Hungarians got their first dose and about 4 300 000 people got their second jab as well (out of the 10 million Hungarians)
• Inside of the country almost everything is open now and people with their vaccine certificates can go to hotels, restaurants, bars, cinemas, gyms, pools, museums etc… We have a mutual agreement with some countries about accepting each others immunity certificates, meaning these nationalities do not have to quarantine themselves after entering Hungary: Slovenia, Croatia, Bahrain, Romania, Turkey, Czech Republic, Mongolia, Georgia, Moldova, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Cyprus, Ukraine, Slovakia, Netherlands, Morocco, Albania. Plus hopefully soon the European Union’s vaccine passport will be accepted, too.

Closure of the Chain bridge & a new boat to replace it

As we have shared earlier, the iconic first bridge on the Danube in Budapest has been closed for renovation. From the 16th of June there is a boat that rides back and forth next to the Chain bridge and it can accommodate about 250 people. It takes about 5 minutes for the boat to cross the river and it rides from Monday to Sunday between 7 am and 8:15 pm. The name of the two stops between which the boat crosses: Jégverem street and port Akadémia 1. On weekdays it can be used with a public transport monthly pass or a single ticket, on the weekends the price of the ticket is 500 HUF (about 1.5 EUR). Masks must be worn on the boat.

Hoping that we are gonna ride together soon again:

The Free Budapest Walking Tours Team 🙂

Covid-19 related news of Hungary

As we have shared in our previous blog posts (see the 2 latest Here and Here), Hungary has started easing Covid-19 related restrictions.

Inside the country almost everything is open now and can be visited with our immunity certificates (at the moment out of 10 million about 5.3 million Hungarian people got their first jab and about 3.7 million got the second dose of the Coronavirus vaccination).

However, at the moment there are only 11 nationalities that can enter Hungary without having to quarantine themselves, if they are vaccinated and have their immunity certificates with them. These are: Slovenia, Croatia, Bahrain, Romania, Turkey, Czech Republic, Mongolia, Georgia, Moldova, Serbia, Montenegro. At the moment, we are preparing to establish accepting each others immunity certificates with Greece, Israel, Slovakia and Poland, too.

We are still not running our daily Free Budapest Walking Tours yet, but planning to restart them in the beginning of July, when the European Union’s mutual vaccine passport will be in use in Hungary as well.

Restart of public transport boats from the 4th of June 2021:

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the scheduled boats on the River Danube that belong to the Budapest Transport Center were not running, now they start operating again. It is a nice boat ride that can be considered to be a sightseeing activity as well 🙂

They are going to run every week from Tuesday to Sunday (not on Mondays) every 2 hours between noon and 8 pm on the following route: Vígadó square-Akadémia-Margaret Island-Batthyány square-Műegyetem-Bálna-Vígadó square. The last boat gets to the final stop at 9:15 pm.

The roundtrip boat rides can be used from Tuesday to Thursday with the monthly Budapest public transport pass (or any pass that is longer for more than one month) or by buying a 1000 HUF (roughly 3 EUR) day ticket. From Friday to Sunday the boats can be used by buying a 1000 HUF (roughly 3 EUR) day ticket with which one can ride the boats all day long that day. The tickets can be bought at Vígadó square boat station or on the boat at any stops.

Hope to see you as soon as possible on our daily Free and Private Budapest Walking Tours!

Covid-19 related news of Hungary and us, the Free Budapest Walking Tours Team

As we have shared in our previous blog posts, Hungary has started a gradual reopening inside of the country after the third wave of the Coronavirus pandemic and the number of cases have started decreasing and the vaccination program has been going quite well. Here is what is open now after a long lockdown since last November.

Regarding international travelling: the borders of the country are not fully open yet for anyone (therefore we are still not running our daily free Budapest walking tours, but as soon as we reopen, you will be able to see info about it on our website and Facebook page as well!). However, Hungary has established a couple of agreements with some countries: we mutually accept each others immunity certificates with Slovenia, Croatia, Bahrain, Romania and Turkey at the moment. It means that Hungarians can travel to these countries and come home without having to quarantine themselves and people from the mentioned countries can travel to Hungary without having to go to quarantine after they enter our country.

Domestic travelling inside of the country is getting awake after a long lockdown. Those Hungarians that are vaccinated and got their immunity certificates already (about 4.3 million people out of the population of about 10 million people) can visit hotels as well. They say that hotels and other kind of accommodations on the Hungarian countryside are getting quite a lot of bookings and are preparing for a very busy summer season.

We are eagerly preparing for the reopening of the borders and can not wait to have you here again, Dear Travelers! It has been too long since we could show you around our great capital city and tell you all the stories about our history, culture, cuisine and much more on our free walking tours in Budapest!

Covid-19 related news of Hungary and the Free Budapest Walking Tours Team

As we have shared in our previous blog article, a gradual reopening started in our country after the third wave of the coronavirus pandemic reached its peak and the number of new cases started dropping plus the number of people who got their first Covid-19 vaccine reached 3.5 million (this was the number they set for the gradual reopening).

Terraces of cafés, bars, restaurants could reopen last Saturday, on the 24th of April 2021, after a long break, they have been closed since last November… We made a few pictures last Sunday at our free tour meeting point in Budapest, on the Erzsébet square, where there are a few open-air bars and a club, too (the photo on top of this article also belongs here).

We are soon going to reach 4 million vaccinated Hungarian people and then they are going to ease some other restrictions, too. Let’s see what is going to happen when we reach the number 4 million: gyms, pools, libraries, zoos, museums, hotels, accommodations can reopen, too, but only those people can visit them who are already vaccinated against Covid-19 and have their immunity cards with them. They send these plastic cards to people who already got their first dose of the vaccine.

We are still not running our daily Free Budapest Walking Tours, but hopefully the gradual opening can go on and we can soon start guiding you around in our beautiful capital city. We are keeping you updated on our website and Facebook page as well!

When we reopen there will be small change to our General Budapest Walk: we are dividing it into two parts, since the famous Chain bridge has been closed for renovation works until the end of 2023 and if we took another bridge from Pest to Buda that would take too long. This is why we are going to have a separate General Pest Walk and General Buda Castle Walk with different meeting point. We are keeping you updated with this topic as well!

Take care, hope to see your smiling faces soon! 🙂