Away from the tourist trails, Budapest is renowned for its street art and inner-city cool. Photo / Phil Taylor
Joanna Wane goes to rack and ruin in Budapest’s District VII.
Some of the best travel tips used to come from cabbies, who know a city like the back of their hands. That’s a bit more hit-and-miss these days, with ride-hailing apps taking over from taxis. But in Budapest, my Bolt driver has it nailed.
I’m in the Hungarian capital for four days, and one of the things on my to-do list is a visit to the New York Cafe, “the most beautiful coffee house in the world”. Unfortunately, it’s on everyone else’s list, too.
After some deep-dive research on the internet (well, reading a few travel blogs), my husband and I have booked an Airbnb apartment in District VII, a colourful inner-city neighbourhood that encompasses the historic Jewish Quarter, famous for its “ruin bars” in derelict buildings.
We’re on the way there when I spot the New York Cafe. There’s a queue stretching around the block. The prices are extortionate, warns our driver, who advises us to stick with coffee: “The food is terrible.”
The next day, we take his advice and fill up on Hungarian langos – deep-fried flatbread with lashings of garlic-infused oil – before being ushered to a table. A latte macchiato dusted with real flakes of 24-carat gold costs around $25, but it does come with a cookie.
Once a favourite gathering place for artists, writers and poets, the opulent neo-Renaissance cafe is a truly extraordinary place, with marble pillars, gilded stucco and ornate ceiling frescoes. On the mezzanine floor, a string quartet plays under a dazzle of chandeliers.
Like the Belle Epoque it evokes, it’s an echo of a time gone by. The city itself has a gritty Eastern European feel, with an urban street culture that radiates understated cool.
It’s late autumn when we arrive in Budapest, the grand finale of a 15-day river cruise that began in Amsterdam, 1400km away. I fell in love with this beautiful place when I came here as a backpacker in the late 80s, so we’ve tacked on a few extra days to explore on our own.
After two luxurious weeks on the riverboat, where our every whim is catered to – from what we eat to how we spend the day – it’s a bit of a shock to find ourselves cut loose and needing to reboot our brains, which have been idling in “sleep mode” for most of the trip.
Divided into three separate cities until the 1870s, Budapest is sliced in half by the Danube River, which once marked the border of the Roman Empire here. Ruins of the ancient Roman city of Aquincum have been partially reconstructed as a tourist attraction and remain an active excavation site.
We dock opposite the Great Market Hall, a couple of kilometres past the magnificent neo-Gothic Hungarian Parliament Building, which has 691 rooms and staircases decorated with gold.
Our choice of onshore expeditions this morning includes a soak in the 19th-century geothermal Szechenyi Baths and a coach ride to the Hospital in the Rock, housed in a nuclear bunker built into the caverns under Buda Castle during World War II.
We sign up for a walking tour of the historic Castle District in Buda, on the west bank of the river. By the time we wind our way up Gellert Hill, dawn’s heavy cloud has lifted for a spectacular view across to Pest, the bustling heart of the city on the flat eastern side.
Hungary is a culturally Catholic country now, our guide informs us, but it evolved from staunchly pagan roots. Gellert Hill is named after a bishop who attempted to convert the locals to Christianity and is said to have been rolled down the hill to his death in a barrel full of nails.
According to legend, the mythical Turul bird guided Hungary’s founding Magyar tribes out of Eurasia. Now a national identity symbol, the huge bird of prey stands guard on the castle wall, immortalised in bronze, with a sword clutched in its claws.
The Castle District, with its quaint cobblestone streets and imposing architecture, has a wealth of galleries, museums and strudel shops. But it’s not until we leave the tourist trail behind that the “Queen of the Danube” really begins to peel back its layers.
One of Europe’s largest cities, Budapest is divided into 23 districts, each with its own distinctive character. For me, Pest’s faded grandeur, with its decorative facades and flaking paint, holds more mystery and magic than any of the medieval “old towns” we’ve been charmed by in Germany, which can feel like manicured film sets.
Around the corner from where we’re staying, a huge “Match of the Century” mural commemorates Hungary’s historic 6-3 football victory over England in 1953, the home team’s first defeat at Wembley Stadium. Apparently, creating the work – one of dozens of street-art murals – required 400 litres of paint.
The old Jewish Quarter in District VII (Erzsebetvaros) is a vibrant hipster hangout now, filled with live music, kosher eateries, specialist bookstores and quirky secondhand retro vintage stores.
Its “ruin bars”, which began as pop-ups in abandoned buildings, are now an established feature of the nightlife here. The best place to start, our Bolt driver has told us, is Szimpla Kert, which opened in an abandoned factory in 2002.
At night, up to 5000 people rotate through the crumbling graffiti-covered labyrinth of bars, lounges and art installations, which sprawl across multiple floors. A sensory overload that’s not for the faint-hearted, it’s like stepping into a dystopian arthouse movie set in a kitsch curiosity shop.
Woven into the fabric of the neighbourhood, too, are constant reminders of its sombre history. In 1944, this is where the walled Budapest ghetto was built, enclosing 70,000 Jews in an area of less than 0.3sq km. Those who survived were sent to concentration camps.
In the rear courtyard of the Dohany Street Synagogue, a “Tree of Life” weeping willow sculpture by Imre Varga memorialises the death of some 600,000 Hungarian Jews under the Nazi regime.
By the time our four days are up, I’ve ticked (or crossed off) pretty much everything on my to-do list. In reality, though, Budapest is a city that rewards the aimless wanderer. It’s also easy to navigate, despite its urban sprawl.
Two underground metro lines and seven suspension bridges cross the Danube, linking Buda with Pest. There’s also an excellent network of buses, trams and trolleybuses. And here’s our Bolt driver’s best inside tip: if you’re over 65, you can travel on public transport for free.
New Zealand Herald travelled courtesy of Scenic on a 15-day Jewels of Europe river cruise from Amsterdam to Budapest. scenicnz.com