BUDAPEST

The heat nearly defeated me! The forecast was for rain, showers, and overcast. It was blisteringly hot with no respite in sight!
I walked… that’s the best way to get a feel of the place isn’t it?
The big change from London, was the superabundance of shoe shops and the lack of fast food joints!
The Hungarians eat well…. very well… almost too well.
I could only manage two meals a day. Was it from the heat, or the fact that an evening meal for one was really more than enough for two!
The first impressions were of grey damaged buildings interspersed with painfully ugly utilitarian but deadened communist architecture.
It appears that the Nazis [on the hill in Buda] and the Russians, across the Danube, on the flat plain of Pest, bombed the hell out of each other and all the surrounding buildings for three weeks at the end of the last war while a group of Nazi thugs [ The Arrow Cross] rounded up everyone else, brought them to the bank of the Danube and proceeded to shoot them all, then dump them in the river!
It must have been a horrific time! No wonder the city may appear grey and depressing with that sort of history behind it?
However, once you look through the curtain of recent events, to the end of the 19th century, you find examples of the most voluptuous, embellished architectural features.
It does give an insight into what went before and what was lost. Can it be regained?
The castle hill seems a lovely restful remove from the bustle of the business area of Pest, overrun with tourists of course! The Museums are well kept and accessible too.
The public transport is amazingly good and free for EU citizens over 65!
But, for me, without doubt were fleeting glimpses of the traces of staggeringly elaborate and intricately executed designs and architectural features of days gone by.
In retrospect, Budapest is definitely a place worth re-visiting in spite of the fact that I managed to take 250 photos this time! Hurray for Digital Cameras!