Budapest - the "Paris of the East"

27 June 2024

I spent two days wandering around this city full of romantic architecture and charming streets; split in half (Buda and Pest) by the River Danube, it is also dotted with beautifully illuminated bridges that made exploring on foot an absolute pleasure.

Although modern-day Budapest is fully European, there's something exotic about the place. This area has absorbed wave after wave of migrating ethnic groups. First came the Magyars, who stampeded in from central Asia about a thousand years ago to settle the region. They were followed by Turks, Germans, Slavs, Jews, and Roma, creating a cultural goulash that's still simmering today.

Budapest boomed in the late 19th century, after the Habsburg rulers made it co-capital — with Vienna — of their vast Austro-Hungarian empire. Because of this heritage, Budapest feels more grandiose than you'd expect for the capital of a relatively small country.

That boom peaked with a flurry of construction in anticipation of a citywide party in 1896 — the 1000th anniversary of the arrival of the Magyars. Not wanting to play second fiddle to Vienna, Budapest used the millennial celebration as an excuse to remake the capital with grand squares, heroic monuments, and even a subway (the Continent's oldest). Many of the city's finest landmarks date from this era.

By the end of World War I, though, the Habsburgs and their golden-age elegance were gone. Very soon after Hitler came to power in Germany, Hungary ignobly allied itself with the Nazis. Its reward was to be "liberated" by the Soviets, who installed a communist government after World War II. Today, that time feels like ancient history and younger Hungarians have no first-hand memory of communism.

These are my highlights of Budapest:

The neo-Gothic Parliament Building which dominates the curve of the Danube and is a true postcard (remember those) superstar. It houses the Holy Crown (used to crown the country’s monarchs since the 12th century), as well as other royal jewels.

Not too far from Parliament was one of the city’s most moving memorials – the Shoes on the Danube. The monument honours the victims of the Holocaust who were marched to the riverbank on a dark winter’s day and ordered to remove their shoes before being shot and falling into the fast-flowing river beneath. 

The Buda side's rolling hills are crowned by the former Royal Palace, one of the city’s most emblematic buildings. Razed and rebuilt several times through the ages, today it houses the Hungarian Natural Gallery and major temporary exhibitions. 

Other iconic landmarks include Fishermen’s Bastion, with its unparalleled panorama of Pest's skyline over the Danube. The Gothic Matthias Church is just steps away on twisting cobble-stoned streets. The half-day spent here alone was hardly enough.

I took a ride through downtown on Tram 2, which is frequently cited as one of the most panoramic tram journeys in the world, Tram 2 travels all along the Danube shore between the Margaret Bridge (Jászai Mari tér) and south Pest. It chugs alongside everything you need to see downtown, all for the price of a regular public transport ticket. 

St Stephen’s Basilica is the city’s biggest church. Inside, it hides the country’s most revered religious relic – the embalmed right hand of St Stephen, the founding king of Hungary. It is 96 metres high, the same height as the Parliament, to signify that church and state are equal. It also houses amongst other royal tombs that of Ferenc Puskas, Hungary’s greatest footballer. The view from the top of the dome over the city is stunning.

Full of fancy shops, cafes and gorgeous buildings, tree-lined Andrássy Avenue is Budapest’s version of the Champs-Élysées. It begins behind the basilica and stretches all the way to Heroes’ Square, one of the city’s most famous monuments. Along the way, you’ll see the Hungarian State Opera and the harrowing House of Terror Museum, the former headquarters of the secret police, where victims of cruel regimes were once tortured. Especially harrowing is the exhibition in the cellar, showing how the victims were jailed and executed.

The largest Jewish place of worship outside New York City, the Moorish-style Great Synagogue is one of Budapest’s most eye-catching buildings. Built in 1859, the distinctive structure, with its crenelated red-and-yellow glazed-brick facade and two enormous towers, stands next to the Hungarian Jewish Museum. 

The Central Market Hall is the oldest and largest in Hungary and is indeed an impressive building. It houses innumerable fruit and vegetable vendors as well as street-food offering delights such as Goulash, Kolbasz (spicy sausage made with paprika) and Hurka (blood pudding with rice).

A couple of days was not long enough to sample all that Budapest has to offer – the  cultural activities , historic sights, the centuries-old thermal baths or the thriving food-and-drink scene (my evenings were taken up watching the Euro football games in the huge Public-Viewing areas in a park in the city centre).  Nevertheless, I came away with an overall impression of a unique and underrated city that has truly much to offer; another trip would be well worth it to catch up with what I missed this time around.