"Budapest - central Europe's most... " a Budapest Travel Page by Airpunk

Among Europe’s capitals, Budapest is one of the most underestimated. Not only that it suffers from its eastern european communist image it got during the time of Soviet influence. It is a huge city when it comes to size and inhabitants. Somewhere, I read that it ranks 6th in the European Union with only London, Paris, Berlin, Rome and Madrid having more inhabitants. But also in size, it is a city with incredible dimensions. If you are not into walking and/or arrive at a time when bad weather is expected, you’ll have to rely on a car or public transport. While I have no opinion on driving a car in Budapest, public transport is excellent – not really modern, but very efficient. Sights are spread throughout the city, with a large part situated on Castle Hill in Buda. But here some good news: Although having its touristy places, it is one of the easiest places to travel in Europe. People are helpful and most of the younger generation are fluent in English. And although nocity in the world is 100% safe (see warning and dangers), I can’t think of many european capitals where you can move around freely without any fear of crime. For details about the different places you can visit, please check out my Budapest site as well as those of other travellers.

As some of you might know, Budapest is two cities in one. Buda is the historic, Pest the glamorous part and together they form an unity which can mess with all the big cities in the world. But what most people don’t know: There’s a third city in this unity. Óbuda (old-Buda), although commonly seen as a part of Buda, was an independent city until the union of 1873. Budapest began its history in the first century as a roman town. In the early 2nd century, the first fortifications were built at the place which is now Óbuda. Pest did not appear until the settlement of the Magyar tribes during the Migration Period. It was first mentioned in the 12th century, but is believed to be older. While trade floursihed in liberal Pest, Buda got its advantages as a royal city under the portection of the King, who had his palace on what is today Castle Hill. During the ottoman occupation, Buda was the seat of the ottoman governor and retained some of its royal advantages, but large parts Pest’s population fled to the non-occupied parts of Hungary which are in today’s Slovakia. It took hungarians a lot of time to regain autonomy. When the Ottomans left Buda and Pest, the austrian Habsburg monarchs took over power and what followed was a struggle for autnomy which was partly achieved in 1867. In the 19th century, trade flourished again on the Pest side and so, palaces were built all over the city – not only for and by wealthy families, but also palaces of culture like opera houses grew out of the ground making Pest one of the fastest growing cities of its time. When the cities united in 1873, they were first called Pest-Buda, but that wuickly changed to Easier-pronouncable Budapest.

Although Hungary might have looked like a winner of WWI, gaining its independence after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, it was not. Budapest became the capital of a country which lost some of its territories as part of the treaties after the war. But it came even worse: A Nazi-inspired government supported Germany in the early years of WWII and after Hungary switched side in favour of the allies, the Nazis occupied the country and destroyed a some parts of the historical areas in Buda and Pest. While retracting, the germans destroyed all the bridges leading over the Danube river and blew up the castle. What a nice goodbye present! Later, when Budapest came under influence from the Soviets, Budapest became the stage of a drama called the Hungarian Revolution. Protests against the stalinist government, starting from October 23rd 1956 on, culminated into a revolution under leadership of former prime minister Imre Nagy. It was crushed by Soviet armed forces with the last fights in Budapest ending on November 15th. Nagy was exceuted some years later, so that he never saw his dream of an independent and free Hungary become true. It was in 1989 when Budapest became the capital of the new, democratic state.

P.S.:
Hungarian is a b*tch to learn and although I managed to learn a couple of words and phrases, I was far away from doing some useful communication in this language. Although hungarians are among the most friendliest people on earth and always helpful, I still felt a little ashamed that I didn’t learn more of their language. This goes on today and I don’t feel very proud when I say that I didn’t pay a lot of attention on placing the right accent on the right place or using a good transliteration when using hungarian names. So, dear hungarians, please forgive me – but your language was too hard a challenge for me.