Neighbourhood: Budapest

In a city stuffed with attractions, find your own favourite pocket of Budapest — be it the lively Jewish Quarter, the gleaming battlements of Buda or Hungary’s very own Champs-Élysées.

- Adrian Phillips

Budapest has come a long way in a short time. The Iron Curtain fell just over 25 years ago, but Budapest has since emerged as one of the world’s favourite citybreak destinations. Hotels abound, service is excellent, vibrant festivals provide year-round celebrations, and vegetarians can finally find more than fried cheese or battered mushrooms on restaurant menus. Behind all this, though, is a history of highs and lows, the pride and anguish of a country that’s faced occupation and terror but has repeatedly found the strength to pick itself up. It’s a past indelibly scored on the national consciousness, and — if you reach for it — can be felt in the very bricks and mortar of the city’s varied neighbourhoods, from the lofty Castle District and the grand environs of Andrássy út to the transformed Jewish Quarter.

Castle District “Man, this place has been beaten up over the years!” comments an American-sounding tourist to his girlfriend, his nose deep in a guide book. “You wouldn’t know it,” she replies as she gazes around the square. And she’s right; it’s spick and span. The neogothic arches of Matthias Church give way to a harlequin’s hat of a roof, the patterned tiles a multicoloured celebration of the spring sunlight. Opposite, a golden dove shines impossibly bright atop Trinity Column, while the coned turrets of the Fishermen’s Bastion almost glow they’re so white.