Buda, meet Pest

As any fule kno, Budapest is two cities that were only recently united, namely Buda on the west and Pest on the right, parted by the brown, raging Danube. Buda is all hilly and stuff, while Pest is flat and more populous.

You know that feeling when you're sitting at a warm pavement café sipping a cold beer and alternating your time between watching England hammer Switzerland, and ogling the best-looking female population this side of Asia (except who, unlike many Asians, dress sexy yet stylish)? Well, that's how I felt on Thursday.

The Chain Bridge

Funicular railway with Chain Bridge in the background.

Earlier in the day we'd strolled from Pest to Buda over the "Chain Bridge", which, we were informed by the persistent, Teutonically moustachioed tout with perfect English but bizarre intonation whom we met after having taken the funicular railway up to the castle, was "one OF nine BRIDGES in BUdapest, BUT onlY the seCOND bridge TO be built OVER the enTIRE RIVer, unITING the two CITies, but not the OLDest that is IN gerMANy SEVen cenTURies beFORE this". We couldn't get rid of him for a while. He told us that he'd provide us with a day tour "that WILL be INformaTIVE... but not HUMourLESS - you are FROM ireLAND, the IRish enjoy HUMour yes? JAMES Joyce? SamUEL beckETT?" Eventually he buggered off and started talking fluent German and Italian to other tourists. Clever chap, if slightly irritating.

An example of late 19th Century optimisitic neo-classical building: the church of St. Stephen (István). His hand is in a shrine here, and once a year they parade it round the streets. The expats all call it "Thing".

Hungary's history is dreadful; though at the height of the Austro-Hungarian empire at the end of the 19th century, there was a feeling of complete optimism, leading to the wholesale transformation of Budapest into something architecturally quite magnificent, things went downhill from about 1914 onwards, and during the rest of the 20th century, they consistently backed the wrong horse. Budapest was bombed to shit during WWII, between the Russians attacking the Nazis from opposite banks of the river, then the Nazis reinvading, then the Allies bombing. Then the Hungarian Commies took over, followed by the Russian invasion of 1956. Hungarian holidays celebrate defeats, not victories.

The castle from Pest

After 1956 a load of classical architecture was knocked down in favour of Stalinist brutalism, and nasty cheap concrete is still visible everywere. Since 1989, they're slowly been repairing a lot of the imperial buildings to their former glory. There is a tradition amongst pubs there that during the winter they have a permanent base, usually in a cellar, but when the weather is warmer they move to an outdoor venue. These aren't always the same places, so each summer you have to find out where your local is. The city was built up massively at the height of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and most of these housing blocks look very similar to those seen other European capitals, but with an Ottoman habit of putting a large courtyard in the middle. Since the fall of Communism, a few of these places have fallen into disrepair, so a few of these roving pubs have set up shop in the courtyards, using the ground floor of the derelict building for the toilets and the cellars for dancefloors. Pretty cool. We visited a few, one of which was called "Crime Scene", with an outline of a body on the ground when you walked in.

This projects from the top of the House of Terror. It's got them in trouble since the street is a World Heritage Site.

The House of Terror is a building on Andrássy Utca, which is the dominant boulevard of Pest, that was used by the Hungarian Communists, the Nazis, and the Russians, as a secret police HQ and torture chamber. It's now a not-quite-brilliant interactive museum. Unfortunately the English-language commentary was out of order, but there were leaflets and we got the message. Nasty business, though it did seem to concentrate on Communist evils, and rather gloss over the 450,000 Jews who were removed to concentration camps during a mere 5 months of Nazi occupation. The cellar of the building had recreated the detention cells, including a "little ease" that you could only stand up in, which was horrendously claustrophobic. Electrodes for genital and nippular torture, made of a light fitting with the bulb removed - it just plugged into the mains. Also the gallows, which didn't quite have the drop needed to cause death, so an orderly had to wind a rope tied to the prisoner's feet around a wheel to finish the job. If you've read Under the Frog by Tibor Fisher, this is where one of the main protagonist's mates was taken as a political prisoner.

After that we were all a bit freaked out, so we needed a beer, and accidentally spent all afternoon getting twatted, chatting to Adam, a Hungarian waiter whose English was so fluent and nuanced that I thought he was in fact English, even though he's never been there. Nice guy, but very pessimistic, which according to all the expats we met, seems to be a national trait brought on by their history. Though pessimistic, they're also very friendly, although not overly helpful when it comes to service; Communism always stifles initiative, in my opinion, and though it's 15 years on, some of the lack of willingness to work hard is evident. This attitude applies across most industries, according to the expats: when asked to discuss putting new practices into place, there's universal exposition of why the new way won't work. However, more efficient practices are instantly adopted when workers are ordered specifically what to do; a legacy of 40 years of dictatorship. Conversely, and tragically, the majority of homeless in Budapest are elderly people whose state pensions and apartments evaporated, and state non-jobs disappeared along with Communism.

Trabants, still quite a few of them. Yay for communism!

We were delighted to hear that it was some sort of anniversary of the Chain Bridge - 50 years since its restoration? 150 years since it was built? Not sure. Anyway there was an air display (two helicopters buzzing over the Danube) with an image of the bridge projected onto the underside of their rotors, then a big fuck-off fireworks display, with the fireworks being launched from the top of the bridge supports, and finally the bridge symbolically lighting up. Very good coincidence indeed. Standing on the Pest side of the bridge is the new Four Seasons hotel, and we thought it would be rather decadent to have a cocktail in the lobby. Six of us had two cocktails each, and the bill came to 39,000 forints (€160), which is about a month's salary for an average worker in Budapest.

Fireworks from the bridge!

On our final day we went to one of the many steam baths. Another legacy of the Ottoman occupation, but made particularly Hungarian. We went to Széchenyi Fúrdo, which is the only major unsegregated pool (the lack of segregation assists one in not getting cruised), and is not a tourist attraction per se. was another example of optimistic imperial decadence; three huge bronze domes dominating a vast 19th century complex, with three large steaming pools in the central courtyard, blokes playing chess in the water, a whirlpool in one of the pools, and in the huge building surrounding, a labyrinth of dozens indoor baths, pools, saunas and steamrooms. I endured a 55C steamroom, and a 70C sauna for 5 minutes. Blimey. We spent three hours there and loved every minute of it, but afterwards the dehydration left me reeling.

The domes over the bathhouse.

The final night we spent eating the only Hungarian food I had all weekend at one of the most expensive restaurants in Budapest - Spoon, which is on a boat in the Danube below the castle. I finally had some gúlyas (goulash) and then linguine with duck liver (they like their liver they do) and truffle shavings, with a sensational Hungarian cabernet sauvignon (do I sound like Michael Winner yet?). The entire meal came to €30 a head.

After a quick bout of shopping for paprika, some really nice Hungarian wine (its reputation being resurrected now following decollectivisation of the vineyards), and pepper salami, we took our leave on Malev, which is an impressively modern, efficient, and pleasant airline.

Teensy little subway trains.

Final impressions: beautiful city despite the ravages of war and totalitarianism; lovely people despite an overriding pessimism; great climate, low cost of living, good transport within and without the city (the Hungarian rail network is astonishing, and very cheap). I'd live there, definitely. And if I were ever single again, this is where I'd come!