We first visited Budapest back in 2009 and found it an exciting city, full of energy, restoration and development. Buildings were being refurbished, squares and roads repaved, and there was a real sense of a city on the rise. We had been very keen to see what it was like fifteen years later.

We were not disappointed.

We arrived mid-afternoon on the FlixBus from Banská Bystrica in Slovakia. The central bus station is conveniently located right next to a metro station, so two quick trains later we were at our lovely apartment in central Budapest.

The Budapest metro is clean, efficient, inexpensive and felt completely safe. Our apartment for the week was one of the best short-term rentals we have ever had. Although small, it was in an excellent location, very comfortable, and the owner had thoughtfully equipped it with absolutely everything we needed.

Like the other cities on this trip, Budapest has a wonderful café culture. We quickly found a lovely local café for our morning coffee and settled into a very pleasant daily routine.

Our apartment was also quite close to the very famous New York Café, or New York Kávéház, inside the New York Palace. It is extraordinarily ornate, with marble columns, frescoed ceilings, masses of gold decoration and crystal chandeliers. It opened in 1894 and became a famous meeting place for Hungarian writers, poets and journalists.

We walked past it several times.

And every single time the queue stretched back along the street, sometimes for what looked like an entire block and occasionally even further.

Now, I am sure it is very nice. The interior certainly looked spectacular from what we could see peering past the crowd and through the doorway. But seriously, why? Stand in a queue for hours for a cup of coffee?

Not for us.

We were perfectly happy at a café we had discovered almost directly across the road. It had only recently opened and was run by delightful owners who bent over backwards to be helpful. The coffee was excellent, there was no queue, and after a couple of visits they already seemed pleased to see us. Much more our style.

We revisited many of the main sights, but the queues were enormous, so for the most part we admired the buildings from the outside. We had seen them properly on our previous visit anyway, and neither of us felt particularly inclined to spend hours standing in line simply to see them again.

Instead, we wandered, stopped for coffee when something looked inviting and generally enjoyed being back in the city. We spent time relaxing in the beautiful park on Margaret Island in the middle of the Danube, which was a lovely escape from the busy streets and summer heat.

We also ate extremely well. There were plenty of excellent local restaurants and we tried a good mix of Hungarian dishes, although I drew the line at the pork cutlet stuffed with brains. There are some culinary experiences I am quite happy to leave to other people.

One day, while wandering around with no particular destination in mind, we stumbled across an excellent Asian market. As Australians, Asian food is very much part of our normal cooking routine, so this was quite a find for us. We were still only partway through the journey and knew we would be cooking for ourselves along the way, so we stocked up on spices, sauces and other bits and pieces that would make future meals considerably more interesting.

Budapest, fifteen years later, felt prosperous, positive and very, very safe. It was a far cry from the atmosphere we have experienced in some of the bigger Western European cities in recent years. There was plenty happening, the public transport worked brilliantly, the streets felt comfortable to walk around and the city still had that sense of energy we remembered from our first visit.

It is a big, vibrant city, though, and a week was the perfect amount of time for us. Long enough to settle in, revisit old favourites, discover a few new ones and enjoy the city without feeling as though we had to rush around ticking things off.

By the end of our stay, we were ready to move on.

Preferably somewhere a little smaller.