Buda and Pest
Oh brave new world in which we live. As the shroud of Omicron falls once again to obscure our new-new-normal, the importance of escapism has once again risen. And so, as an early Christmas gift, I give you 10 minutes of it, by writing about the wonderfully surprising city of Budapest. A short break in Budapest was planned a few months ago in the post-pre-covid freedom era of 2021. This time unsolo, I had two of my closest companions with me, so the feel of the trip was a little different to Lisbon (my other escape this year) from the beginning. All I knew about Budapest, frankly, was stag and hen dos. Quite honestly, I was afraid that the place wouldn’t take me much further than the Norwich high street of my teens on a Saturday night. For this, Budapest, I must apologise. My experience was quite different. At face value, Budapest (pronounced Budapeisht) seems a city, like many others, split in two by a river. In fact, Buda and Pest are two cities united by the river. This f...