A city of faded opulence and shameful secrets, shaped by decades of Soviet oppression and a new wellspring of caustic nationalism. Everywhere you go the streets and buildings feel half-empty (and are). The 1989 hangover is still very much apparent in little, indefinable ways, much more so than in the neighboring countries of Croatia and Austria. In Budapest cell phones still feel new, and for a city that’s existed in one fashion or another for over 700 years they are. The Ottoman influence from the sixteenth century is still found in the smells of the market stalls and the tiles of the municipal buildings. All the disparate layers of Budapest are on top of one another, and the results are wholly mysterious and endlessly compelling. You never know what you’re going to find around the next corner.
