dreams on the danube

More than a decade ago, Lina Mounzer fell for elegant Budapest, with its monuments to 19th-century imperial glory and 20th-century political turmoil. In the city's complicated current moment, she returns to discover it anew

i fell in love with Budapest on my first evening there. It was late August 2011, and I was starting a three-month literary residency with the Jozsef Attila K6r association. As I traveled in a taxi toward Veres Palné Street, the light fell in a rich afternoon dazzle, and the trees bowed over the grand boulevards under the emerald weight of their foliage. Cyclists whizzed along paths, and people crammed onto bright yellow trams. Aside from the incongruous graffiti, the setting resembled a 19th-century period film.

That night, I wandered through cobbled streets where sidewalk cafés buzzed with conversation, crowds danced around street musicians, and couples sought privacy in the shadows beneath lush trees. A building pockmarked with holes from World War II mortar fire was a reminder of the miracle of this city—that so many of its old-world treasures remain intact. The Danube was astonishingly broad, the light-flecked hills of Buda towering on the other side, the blazing dome of Buda Castle perched at the very top. I flowed with the crowd across the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, past its massive lion statues. Standing on the Buda side of the river, I took in the fantastical double view of the House of Parliament and its reflection. The building’s neo-Gothic domes and spires were lit up against the indigo night, creating Impressionist dapples on the river. I hadn’t expected the elegance and splendor of the grand Art Nouveau buildings, both imposing and delicate, casually arrayed along streets and boulevards in various states of decline, as if they weren’t architectural marvels. I’m ashamed to say I’d imagined Budapest to be blockier, dulled by Soviet brutalist design. As someone born and raised in Beirut, I thought I was above making easy assumptions about a place. After all, my city, too, surprises visitors with its vibrancy.