Welcome to Budapest

Budapest seems a wonderful place...the impression I had was that we were leaving the West and entering the East. The most western of splendid bridges over the Danube, which is here of noble width and depth, look us among the traditions of Turkish rule.The opening lines of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) convey author Jonathan Harker's sense of entering truly unknown territory when he reached Budapest on his journey to Transylvania. In his day, Budapest was considered the limits of the civilised world - exotic, but rather frightening. Many things have changed since then and Hungary is now very much part of Europe - and officially so since it became a member of the European Union (EU) in May 2004. Its capital, Budapest, is a busy, increasingly cosmopolitan city with a growing tourist trade. New routes opened up by budget airlines ensure that Budapest is more accessible than ever before, yet, for the moment at least, it still retains much of its old-world charm.Budapest is a city of two distinct parts, divided by the Danube, which, despite the waltz written in its honour, is murky and definitely not blue. The river separates the medieval streets and Roman remains of Buda and Óbuda (meaning Old Buda) from the late 19th century boulevards of Pest. On the west bank, in Buda, the hills rise above the river. Over a period of 800 years, Castle Hill has suffered 31 sieges and been reduced to rubble on numerous occasions, yet enough has survived for it to remain one of Europe's most appealing medieval enclaves. On the flat ground of the opposite bank lies Pcst, a busy city with broad, leafy boulevards and handsome baroque, neoclassical and art nouveau buildings. Only in 1873 were these distinct areas merged to form one city.Contemporary Budapest and its PeopleThere's a lot more to the city than the historic sites and thermal baths for which it is famous. Since the end of the Soviet period Budapest has become very much a consumer city, with more than 20 modern shopping centres, numerous hypermarkets and fast-food outlets. Many Budapestis wear fashionable clothes, drive decent cars - there's a feeling that the few old 'Trabis' are maintained from a sense of irony, not poverty - and have mobile phones. Hungarians are renowned for their friendliness. If they speak English (many of them, particularly the younger generation, are fluent in English or German) and they see you looking at a map, they will often volunteer help. If they don't speak English, they'll try their best to help - confronted with a foreigner who has got lost, missed a bus stop or can't understand the transport ticket machine, they will often take it upon themselves to help sort out the situation. Eminent HungariansHungary has produced some great musicians, such as Franz Liszt (1811-86), who became president of the Budapest Academy of Music. His disciple, Béla Bartók (1881-1945) later became a professor at the academy and collaborated with Zoltàn Kodàly (1882-1967) in collecting and publishing Hungarian folk songs. Writers include poet Sàndor Petófi (1823^-9), who became a hero of the European revolutions of 1848, and Arthur Koestler (1905-83). George Soros, businessman and philanthropist, was born in Budapest, as was conductor Sir Georg Solti, who is also buried here. Seventeen Hungarians have won Nobel Prizes: holography was developed by prize winning physicist Dennis Gabor, and Zsig-mondy crater on the moon is named after Nobel laureate Richard Zsigmondy, who won the prize for chemistry in 1925.

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