Budapest revealed as best value city break
Budapest is the best city for a cheap holiday, a Post Office Travel Money survey has revealed.
The Hungarian capital powered past Riga and Prague to claim the top spot in the annual City Costs Barometer and has emerged as best value in the survey of 25 cities.
At £134.76 for 12 typical city break items - including meals, drinks, two nights' weekend accommodation, sightseeing and city transport costs - prices in Budapest are less than a third of those in Europe's most expensive cities - Stockholm (£420.36) and Copenhagen (£440.45).
The survey found that, along with Prague, Budapest is the only city where the holiday pound is worth more than a year ago because sterling has risen 3.1 per cent year-on-year against the Hungarian forint and 2.9 per cent against the Czech koruna.
The cities tipped as ones to watch in the Post Office Holiday Money Report are Lithuania's capital Vilnius (£140.99), Warsaw in Poland (£151.69) and capital of Latvia, Riga (£155.34).
However, the report revealed that prices have risen in 22 of the 25 cities surveyed, with Vienna, Boston and Stockholm seeing the biggest increases.
Berlin, Prague and Lisbon have seen prices drop, and lower sightseeing prices in the Portuguese capital, where spending money will stretch 19.1 per cent further, make Lisbon the cheapest eurozone city.
Andrew Brown of Post Office Travel Money said: "Rising prices in most of the cities we surveyed, combined with the falling value of sterling, make it more important than ever to check prices for key items like meals, drinks and sightseeing before booking as these are costs that most city break tourists cannot avoid.
"There are big price variations across Europe – not just in the eurozone. This means UK holidaymakers can make their pounds stretch further by choosing a cheaper capital like Lisbon or Budapest and it seems that many people are doing just that as Post Office sales of Hungarian forint have surged by 141 per cent in the year to date, compared with 2012."
Croatia was named another 'emerging' destination and despite a 12.9 per cent rise of city breaks to Dubrovnik (£168.20), the city remains one of the best value options. Other up-and-coming cities included Moscow, Krakow and Abu Dhabi.
The most expensive city in the survey was New York (£541.23).
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