Budapest without borders

Budapest, Hungary, a place of conflicting definitions, for in many ways this town is the point where east meets west. Well, as reliable an authority as Bram Stoker – who imagined everything from his study in London – said so when he wrote Dracula. “The impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East” as Jonathon Harker writes in his diary as his train pulls out of the station in Budapest. And if you look at it from one perspective, Hungary can properly be considered not only Eastern European part also of the Balkans, but don’t tell too many Hungarians that, for they will insist their place is very much in Central Europe, or Mittle-Europa as it was known during the ‘Golden Age’ of the Austro Hungarian Empire. Still, the Eastern influence remains.

The Turks held Budapest for 145 years and, among other things, revived and enriched the culture of spa baths – began by the Romans centuries before. There’s no doubt however that Hungarian historians (and practically every Hungarian is an amateur historian) consider the 145 year occupation to have been, well, 145 years too long. Yet it’s interesting to note that when the Hungarians reclaimed their city, they destroyed just about every architectural reminder of the Ottomans. But not the baths, they rather liked the baths and to this day Hungarians retain an unquestioning, touching faith in the curative powers of thermal waters. The baths themselves are both aquatic museums and the city’s public houses; all of life is there – from the retirees playing floating games of chess midst the neo-baroque riot of Széchenyi baths, to the muscle bound hunks and voluptuous ghetto princesses that gather at Cinetrip, a regular dance party held in Rudas, the 15th century Turkish baths. Something of the mosque, the minaret and the odalisque remains even in the city’s gorgeous, late 19th century architecture too – a breath of Byzantium among all the Art Nouveau.

She’s been knocked around a bit too – this twin city (Buda and Pest, you see) touted as ‘the pearl of the Danube‘ by ambitious tour guides and holiday brochure copywriters. A siege over Christmas 1944 when the Red Army pounded the city with artillery, and the street fighting that followed has left whole neighbourhoods still pockmarked with bullet holes and artillery fire. During Soviet rule, anyone who cared a fig for old standards of aesthetic beauty probably kept their mouths shut. The magnificent Gresham Palace, facing the stone lions on the Chain bridge, was turned into a low-rent housing project. Now of course it’s a Four Seasons Hotel.

Not that Budapest lacks physical beauty for this city has that in spades. On a fine day, a stroll around the castle district and the palace of Emperor Sisi, with its views of the Danube, can lift all but the most moribund of spirits. If that fails, a dessert in the Gerbeaud or Central Café will transport you gently back to an era of boaters and parasols, corsets and walrus moustaches.

There’s no doubt Budapest is also an extremely cinematic city. As well as doing a great job of looking like the most dynamic and one of the most beautiful central European capitals, Budapest has also stood in for Buenos Aires, Moscow, Berlin, London, Paris and many more. Hungarians have a long cinematic tradition at home and abroad too, so it’s no surprise that a lot of international films are shot here. With all the filmmaking going on, you never know who you might bump into on the streets of this town. The Hungarians take it all in their stride, as they have for a long time; all speaking a tongue that sounds like a made up language in some early science fiction Mitteleuropean novel. Indeed the Finno-Ugric language is so singular, and its only distant relatives are a long way off in Estonian and Finland. These days only a few common hunter-gatherer terms survive in all three tongues: indeed English and Russian are said to be closer than Hungarian and Estonian. So don’t come here thinking that your Estonian and Finnish will take you very far.

In Hungarian Szia (see ya) means Hello – and Halo means goodbye. First names come last (Gabor Zsa Zsa is what it would say on Zsa Zsa Gabor’s dressing room door) and addresses are written back to front. There are a lot of guys named Attila, not at all barbarous. The national character seems to be similarly elusive – if anything one of manic-depressive high achievers. Examine Hungary’s notables, statistically and historically: Suicides, Nobel prize winners, raging alcoholics, gloriously defeated hussars, failed revolutionaries, actors, showgirls and always, always, great composers and musicians. Even the clichés about violin playing Hungarian gypsies ring true, if only as an echo. Franz Liszt himself believed the gypsy verbunkos was nothing less than the oldest continuous musical tradition in the world.

These days, the rejuvenation of Pest (Buda is on the other side of the Danube) continues apace. The gorgeous, swooning façade of the Hungaria baths restored as part of a hotel development is one example. So is the Gozsdu Udvar (Courtyard), a magnificent Bauhaus apartment block which is like its own self-contained city in miniature: an endless series of linked courtyards, with a single passageway running between them.

There aren’t many cities in the world better than Budapest for just walking around, admiring the way the sunlight hits the buildings, or sitting outside at a café and doing some serious people-watching. In places such as Liszt Ferenc tér (That’s Franz Liszt terrace to you probably) Budapest is definitely one European capital, where the art of the ‘promenade’ has never gone out of style. And as you sip your coffee or your wine, the world, his lover, and their miniature schnauzer go walking proudly by. They soak up attention just as flowers are nourished by sunlight. It’s clear these boulevardiers aren’t necessarily going anywhere – because they have already arrived. It has also been refreshing to see that in the last few years, instead of rolling up the sidewalks, more and more of the downtown area in particular is actually being made pedestrian friendly. Now that’s what this writer calls progress.