Budapest

Budapest is two cities that merged in 1873 and have not yet dissolved into each other. Buda on the western bank is hills, a castle and quiet narrow streets; Pest on the eastern bank is flat plain, wide boulevards and 19th-century blocks running to the horizon. The Danube between them is not a divider but the view itself — and the best thing in the city is to stand on one bank and look at the other. Two things set Budapest apart from the other capitals of central Europe. The first is water: the city sits over more than a hundred thermal springs, and its baths are not a tourist luxury but a daily habit going back to Ottoman rule — some of the baths working today were built in the 16th century and have never stopped. The second is scale: Pest was built in a single boom before the First World War to be the capital of half an empire, so its buildings came out larger than the city needed — a parliament taking a whole riverfront, an avenue ending in a square of heroes, halls and cafés with gilded ceilings. Then there is the 20th century, which passed over the city heavily: the Jewish quarter and its three synagogues, shoes on the Danube bank, the House of Terror, a hospital inside the rock, and communist statues moved to a park outside town rather than smashed. Budapest does not hide its difficult history — it displays it and explains it. In our guide every sight is documented in Arabic: what you will see, what the ticket costs in Hungarian forint, which metro or tram gets you there, and when to come to miss the crowds. Three days is a sensible minimum and four is better — and give at least one bath a full half-day rather than an hour.