Budapest travel info

Lean on the parapet of Fisherman's Bastion at dusk and the whole city lays itself out below you. The Danube runs wide and slow, and across on the Pest bank the Parliament stretches along the water. The moment the sky turns navy, the building lights up gold, bulbs flicker on along the chains of the Széchenyi Bridge, and every phone on the terrace goes up at once.

Buda and Pest started out as separate towns. Hilly Buda has the royal palace, cobbled lanes and the patterned tile roof of Matthias Church; flat Pest has Andrássy Avenue with its opera house, and yellow trams rattling round the Grand Boulevard. In the Jewish Quarter of District VII, crumbling apartment courtyards have been filled with mismatched sofas and fairy lights and turned into ruin bars that stay loud until morning.

Then there's the hot water. Springs run under the city, so the outdoor pools at the yellow, palace-like Széchenyi Baths steam even in January while old men play chess waist-deep. A bowl of paprika-red goulash or a lángos fresh from the fryer, smeared with sour cream, fixes legs that have walked all day.

Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport (BUD)