24 Hours In: Budapest

Wake up and eat pancakes

09.00: Whether or not you stay at the Four Seasons Gresham Palace (00 36 126 86000; fourseaons. com), have breakfast - or any other meal on its mittel-European menu, for that matter, at its Gresham Kavehaz, Roosevelt ter 5-7. This is, in some ways, Budapest's equivalent to London's fashionable Wolseley restaurant, with a beautifully restored interior and animated atmosphere. It also servesgreat coffee and filled pancakes called blintzes.

Go wild at the market

10.00: Paprika is an obvious souvenir, and the place to buy it is the Great Market Hall, Fovam ter - open 7am-6pm Monday to Friday and until 1pm on Saturdays. Also worth a look are the mounds of wild mushrooms on sale, and the display cases of fungi to help you to identify what's edible, what's toxic and what's deadly - just to drive the message home, the latter type is labelled with a skull and crossbones.

TIme to brush up on fine art

11.30: Budapest is packed with galleries, none better than the Museum of Fine Arts (00 36 469 7100; museum.hu), Hosok ter, 10am-5.30pm, closed Mondays). There's an outstanding gallery of Spanish painting, by El Greco, Velasquez, Zurbaran, Goya et al, as well as work by Canaletto, Giorgione, Holbein, Raphael, Rembrandt, Titian, Veronese, plus several works by the Impressionists.

Mind your Ps and Qs at lunch

13.00: Lunch at Café Kor (00 36 311 0053), Sas utca 17, a small ochre-painted vaulted space, with wooden floors, rugs, wrought-iron tables, newspapers on poles. The chatty staff all speak impeccable English, although the odd kerem (please) and koszonom (thank you) go down well. Look out for the specials written on a huge roll of brown paper fixed to the wall - salads with local goat's cheese, and hearty dishes of smoked sausage, potatoes and sour cream.

All that glitters is at the zoo

15.00: Even if you disapprove of zoos, take a trip to Vidam Park and a skirt around the edge of Budapest Zoo and Botanical Garden (00 36 273 4901; zoobudapest.com), Varosligeti korut 6-12, if only to admire the architecture. The Elephant House, in particular, is an Art Nouveau take on a central Asian mosque, with a minaret and decorative domes, purportedly to remind the zoo's inmates of home. The tiles glitter thanks to a coating of iridescent zsolnay, the brightly coloured metallic glaze that makes Budapest's distinctive skyline glitter. Or head for the Vasarely Museum (00 36 388 7551; museum.hu), Szentlelek ter 6 (open 10am-5pm) in off-the-beaten-track Obuda, the area immediately north of Buda, which ought to be on every art aficionado's agenda. Born in 1908, Victor Vasarely is credited as the inventor of Op Art, and was painting geometrically complex monochrome abstracts that play havoc with your vision long before Bridget Riley even went to Goldsmiths.

Put on the glitz and eat cake

17.00: It may be touristy, but Gerbaud, Vorosmarty ter 7/8 is an institution that ought to be experienced (not least for the authentically surly service). It's been serving coffee and Eszterhazi torta (hazelnut cake with whipped cream) since 1858 and seats 330 in its gilded and swagged interior, making it one of the biggest, glitziest cafés in Europe.

A night at the opera, from 75p

19.30: As well as impressive art, Budapest has superb opera and ballet at its Opera House (8) (00 36 1 331 2550; opera.hu), Andrassy utca 22. The diminutive 19th-century theatre is a riot of gilding and plush upholstery. Its companies perform not only classics (including a lot of Bartok), but also late 20th-century Briti and John Cranko's Onegin, as well as ballets such as Kenneth Macmillan's Mayerling. Protective estates have prevented the productions from getting too trendy - proof of the quality of performance. Tickets start from a bargain 75p to £27 for the most expensive seats in the house.

Rework those classic dishes

22.30: If you don't want to walk far, Goa (00 36 302 2570) Andrassy utca 8, is a convenient and modish choice for dinner after the show, though its eclectic menu - Italian to Indonesian and all points in between - is less of an attraction than its decor. A more alluring alternative is T-G aka Tom-George (00 36 266 3226), Oktober utca 6, stunningly designed and fashionable among Budapest's beau monde, who come for sushi. Better, however, to stick to the imaginative reworking of Hungarian classics such as mangalica, strips of pork fillet in a rich gravy, served with roasted peaches and dumpling-sized bread rolls stuffed with goat's cheese; £20-25 a head for two courses, with wine and water.

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