Only in Budapest by Duncan J.D. Smith

Introduction “All foreigners, who have visited Budapest, talk about it with praise, even those who are in the position to make a comparison between the Hungarian capital and the most beautiful and famous cities of foreign lands.” Lajos Kossuth (1883) Budapest is surely one of the most dramatic, and at the same time least known, capital cities in Europe. Straddling the mighty Danube ( Duna ), Buda on the west bank and Pest on the east, it is also one of the most fascinating. The relatively few available guidebooks offer the undemand- ing visitor an amazing (and effortlessly accessible) array of museums, churches, historic buildings and eateries, reflecting the history of the city from Roman and Magyar times, via the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires, up to the present day. However, for those with a little more time on their hands, and for those who want to discover something of the place for themselves, this new guide has been expressly written. It only takes a few minutes of planning, and a glance at a decent street map*, to escape the crowds and the orchestrated tours and discover a different Budapest. Based on personal experience, and footslogging all twenty-three of the city’s districts ( kerületek ), the author will point the explorer in a new and unusual direction. This is the Budapest of Roman ruins, medieval ramparts and Turkish tombs; hidden courtyards and colourful old mar- ket halls; unfrequented museums brimming with fascinating objects; secret caves and thrilling hillside railways; Transylvanian houses and Art Nouveau bath buildings; not to mention a former power station and an old Ukrainian river barge both recently refurbished as arts’ centres! It is also a city with a dark and turbulent past, its myriad monuments to the revolutions of 1848 and 1956, forgotten Jewish cemeteries, bombed-out structures and Stalin-era statues still bearing grim witness to terrible times. As would be expected, many of these curious locations, all of which are both visible and visitable, are to be found within the narrow streets of the ancient Castle Hill of Buda (Vár and Víziváros in District I) and the old medieval walled town of Pest (Belváros in District V). However, a similar number lie outside these long-established areas of occupation, for instance in Óbuda (District III), the former Roman town of Aquincum north of Buda, as well as the environs of the rolling Buda Hills to the west (Districts II, XI, XII and XXII). Equally interesting are the Inner Suburbs Introduction 8