For some rather curious reason, I found myself with a great many photographs from the places we visited last year, yet very little writing to accompany them. The images are all there—moments carefully captured, fragments of experience preserved—but the words never quite followed at the time. I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it is always easier to lift a camera than to pause long enough to shape a thought. Or perhaps I was simply too absorbed in the immediacy of what I was seeing to step back and describe it.
That changed when I received a phone call from someone whose judgement I value. She suggested, quite plainly, that I ought to do more writing about what I had seen. It was a brief conversation, but it stayed with me. And so I have returned to those places through memory and photograph, trying now to give them a different kind of presence—one made not of images, but of words.
The first photograph shows Alexandra standing in front of Sissi’s statue in Budapest. Sissi, of course, is the familiar name of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, a figure who continues to cast a long cultural shadow over the former Habsburg world. She famously found the formality of Vienna oppressive—the stiffness of court etiquette, the constant scrutiny—and turned instead towards Hungary, where she felt something looser, more human, more liberating. Many people still remark on this contrast. Even today, there is a perceptible shift when one moves from Vienna into Hungary: a sense of release, as though something tight has been unfastened.
It can even be heard in the music—the transition from the poised elegance of the Viennese waltz to the more urgent, improvised energy of the Hungarian csárdás. That same contrast seems to linger in the city itself.
From there, our photgraphs wander through Budapest: bookish corners tucked into side streets; then the extraordinary interior of the New York Café, all gilded surfaces and theatrical splendour, more like a stage set than a place for coffee, yet somehow still functioning as a café. Nearby stands the cathedral—imposing, orderly, and part of a broader architectural landscape that is, on the whole, relatively late in development.
Hungary is not primarily a country of surviving medieval cathedrals. Much of its earlier fabric was lost during the long Ottoman occupation, stretching roughly from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. When Hungary re-emerged, much of what we now see was rebuilt or newly constructed, particularly in the nineteenth century, as the country reasserted itself within the framework of the Austro-Hungarian Dual Monarchy, a political arrangement in which Hungary, significantly, stood as an equal partner to Austria.
Here is the courtyard of the apartment building where we stayed—an arrangement of flats gathered around a shared inner space, practical and unexpectedly pleasant. It was booked through Airbnb, and the building had a small garden on the ground floor, a green pocket of calm within the city. From there we climbed to our flat on the fourth floor. Everything we needed was there, including a compact kitchen, though the bed required a certain agility to negotiate, as one had to climb across it rather than simply into it. Still, it worked, and there was a satisfaction in having a place that felt self-contained.
Another image shows the synagogue, a building of striking Moorish design. It survives, which in itself feels significant, given what might so easily have been lost. The history attached to it is heavy: during the Second World War, Hungary’s Jewish population suffered catastrophic losses, with mass deportations carried out in collaboration with Nazi Germany, many ending in Auschwitz within a matter of months. The building today stands as both an active place of worship and a quiet witness to that history, its presence carrying both beauty and weight.
There are lighter moments among the photographs as well. One evening we ate at a small restaurant just around the corner from where we were staying. There was a bowl of goulash, a glass of Hungarian beer, and a sense of being warmly received without fuss or ceremony. It was simple, but deeply satisfying.
Our second day in Budapest proved just as pleasurable, and perhaps even more reflective. We began the morning at the Gellért Baths—a return that carried us back no fewer than thirty-five years, to our first visit in 1990.
That earlier journey now feels like a hinge in history. We had driven into Hungary from Austria in our Morris Traveller, at a moment when the world seemed to be opening up before our eyes. The Fall of the Berlin Wall had recently taken place, the Iron Curtain was lifting, and suddenly Eastern Europe was no longer remote or inaccessible, but vividly, thrillingly within reach. Hungary, then emerging from the greyness of communist rule, felt full of possibility—and we embraced it with youthful enthusiasm, camping on a hillside near the castle.
Returning now, we wondered whether that atmosphere might have been swept away by overdevelopment or mass tourism. Reassuringly, it has not. Budapest still retains its distinctive character—elegant, spacious, and refreshingly free of the relentless high-rise intrusion that has transformed so many other cities.
The baths themselves were as magnificent as ever. The interiors of the Gellért—rich in Art Nouveau detail—remain a feast for the eye, while the waters offered the same restorative pleasure we remembered. We were fortunate, too, to enjoy both the indoor pools and the outdoor baths, especially given that parts are now undergoing restoration
.And here we were in 1991!
Later, we joined another couple for a small private tour—an electric taxi that carried us across the city and, in a sense, across its history. As always, I momentarily wrestled with the geography: which is Buda and which is Pest? It is, of course, Buda—the older, hillier side—that rises above the river, while Pest spreads out in flatter, more modern form.
We climbed into Buda and made our way to the enchanting Fisherman’s Bastion, where the city unfolds in one of the most memorable panoramas in Europe. The view remains wonderfully uncluttered, the skyline still largely untouched by the excesses of modern development. Nearby, the historic heart of the district retains its charm—graceful, atmospheric, and notably unspoilt.
And here we were in 1991 when we reached Hungary with no SatNav, certainly no internet but with plenty of maps and even more energy.
From there, we continued to Buda Castle, where large-scale restoration projects—encouraged in recent years under Viktor Orbán—seek to revive buildings lost or damaged during the war. Our driver, a genial if somewhat world-weary guide, offered a brisk summary of Hungarian history, which he characterised—perhaps not unfairly—as a succession of upheavals and tragedies.
The day reached its high point at the extraordinary Hungarian Parliament Building. Few parliamentary buildings can rival it for sheer theatrical splendour. Its Gothic Revival architecture—almost oriental in its richness—feels unapologetically grand. Inside, the effect is overwhelming: gold, stained glass, and ceremonial spaces that seem designed to impress at every turn.
We saw the great chamber itself, and, most memorably, the Holy Crown of Hungary, guarded with solemn ceremony. At one moment, the stillness was broken by a pair of soldiers performing a slow, deliberate march toward the crown—an arresting, almost ritualistic display that brought home the symbolic weight of the place. One felt, unmistakably, at the centre of Hungarian identity and power.
It invited comparisons. We thought, inevitably, of the Palace of Westminster at home—so familiar, if not always so dignified in its current occupants—and also of the Reichstag Building, which we had visited earlier in the year: a building transformed, reimagined, and made transparent after a troubled past.
All in all, it was a day that combined memory, history, and discovery—Budapest revealing itself not as a relic of the past, but as a city that has carried its history forward with remarkable poise.
Looking back, even the act of returning home has its place in the sequence. We had flown in for a short break, a deliberate interruption of routine, and then just as easily returned. Yet Budapest lingered. It is a city that still holds onto its nineteenth-century character, even where war and time have intervened. Rebuilding has been extensive in places, guided by long-term civic plans that continue to shape its appearance today.
What remains with me most is not any single monument, but the atmosphere of the city itself—its mixture of history and recovery, of grandeur and everyday life, of memory and continuation. Seen now through photographs, it feels less like a sequence of locations and more like a single extended impression, still vivid enough to return to, and still generous enough to yield something new in the tell
