Budapest’s current day Renaissance

My bus didn’t even slow down as we sped past the one-time checkpoint at the Austrian/Hungarian border – we just drove straight through, totally oblivious that we had entered Hungary.

Until very recently, the checkpoint was heavily staffed with a regiment of intimidating officials who would diligently check every foreign passport. They’d be examined, stamped and returned with a suspicious glare – your official welcome to Hungary.

I was a little disappointed in missing out on a souvenir passport stamp and gentle interrogation but I quickly got over it as we sped along the motorway towards Budapest – the new Budapest.

On an unusually balmy January evening, with the temperature hovering around the zero mark, the bus unexpectedly pulled in at Gellert, a gentle but impressive hill which overlooks the city. As I jumped from the bus I fumbled in my gloves and heavy jacket for my camera. I couldn’t get to it fast enough.

The view in front of me was not at all what I had expected, but then again, I didn’t really know what I expected. In a blaze of soft yellow lights, this magnificent city punched me in the eyes. Stretched along both distant banks of the Danube were some of the most imposing buildings I?d seen in all of Europe. This was my real welcome to Hungary.

Scratching the inky sky were the turrets of the Parliament, the spires of countless churches and the shooting beams of a million burning up-lights, highlighting the city’s generous supply of architectural masterpieces. It?s as if a talented lighting technician had been instrumental in my travel arrangements and ensured a first impression that would not fail.

The dark ribbon of the Danube separates Buda from Pest but in this vista it united the two halves of the city with a bath of glowing reflections. The backdrop of a sprawling city with its house lights and moving streams of traffic further enhanced the majesty of the dominating buildings which, from my vantage point became more captivating the longer I spent staring at them – transfixed. The dull soundtrack of church bells and muted traffic noise rolled around the city then slid up the hill towards me, adding another sensory dimension to the total experience.

[Pictured above: Kevin Moloney on location in Budapest]

How can a city be so impossibly beautiful? This is not what I expected Budapest to be, not a city in the east, not a city with such a bruised past.

I could have stood there for hours overlooking the urban lightshow that was turned on just for me (or so I could let myself believe) but the stinging bite of the zero degree temperature on my face had me reluctantly back on the bus, heading for my hotel.

After a recuperative night I join the morning traffic and start to wend my way through the city’s streets. I’m told by a local that Budapest is often compared to the French capital and considered to be the “Paris of the east” but I’ve heard residents of other cities such as Buenos Aires, Shanghai and even Penang say their city is the Paris of whatever region it’s located in too. Why everyone wants their city to be Paris is beyond me. Let Paris be Paris, I say. This is Budapest, the sum of Buda and Pest, with its own character, flavour and history, both ancient and recent.

In the harsh light of day, albeit a dull winter’s offering, the first thing to strike me about Budapest is that its aged skin is deeply scarred.

[Pictured: Budapest – Hungary’s Parliament]

Architecturally, it’s a living, pulsating example of shabby chic and must be the mecca for contemporary designers the world over- I’m sure. The landscape that looked so dazzling and glittering last night now takes on a very different quality.

Appreciating Budapest, with it eclectic collection of architecture and handsome design requires an appreciation of its past. Today’s Budapest is a chronicle of centuries of rich, turbulent and disturbing chapters of atrocity. As a city, it’s been invaded, conquered, bombed, shot at and annihilated more times than any metropolis deserves.

If Budapest were a house, it’s played the role of reluctant host to too many uninvited guests, all of which have overstayed their welcome and left every room and corridor in a devastating mess.

But as the consummate host, it’s cleaned itself up, dusted itself off and opened its arms to a new breed of visitors.

While there’s still plenty of work to complete in the city’s refurbishment, the renovation process is putting a new gloss on its exterior. Where handsome buildings once stood in concert with their neighbours, new ones are being erected, filling the toothless smile of the streetscape. Ancient buildings which once formed an integral part of an eclectic collection of Renaissance, Rococo, Baroque or Moorish architecture are now being faithfully restored, recreated or replaced. I’m even told of a shiny new commercial heart being built to the existing city’s west on wasteland that currently has no aesthetic or commercial appeal.

Regardless of history’s neglectful custodianship of this beautiful city, Budapest still boasts a robust collection of notable buildings and monuments which missed the slings, arrows and bullets of uninvited guests. Magnificent structures such as the skyline-dominating Parliament, with its massive footprint and grand dimensions rival the landmark buildings of any European capital.

As we move through the streets, Andrea, my guide, apologises for the incongruous appearance of modern buildings amongst ancient styles but fails to realise that she, as a guide, and me, as a tourist are looking through the eyes of people living in 2008. Her knowledge of history tells me when each neighbouring building was constructed ? 15^th, 17^th or 19^th century.

“I’m afraid there were houses constructed in the 1960s and the 1990s after the Russians left, which are not of the same standard as the older ones,” she apologetically tells me in perfect English. “There just wasn’t the budget?”

I think about her statement for a while – her apology. We may not appreciate the modern architecture sitting amongst the more glamorous medieval forms, but what will travellers, following in my footsteps in a hundred years think? I marvel at the additions to the architectural collection which were built 100 years ago. Why won?t they marvel at the ones my generation is building now?

Budapest is still dynamic. Its current renaissance clearly demonstrates that.

My small regret in visiting Budapest is that I arrived fresh from Vienna with its immaculate streets, polished buildings, swank establishment and deep-rooted sense of style. It takes discipline to not draw comparisons. Many of Budapest?s grand buildings bear deep scars from bloody conflicts – the most notable, because of it’s relevance to our lifetime is the Second World War.

Cavities exist in the streetscape where the devastation was so severe, restoration was impossible.  Pockmarked walls from bullets and vicious shellfire can still be seen on some once-beautiful buildings.

It’s interesting that as tourists, we “ooh” and “ahh” at ancient buildings all over the world which stand testament to man’s skirmishes but when the evidence of such recent events are so obvious and relatively fresh, we consider it vandalism and “tut tut” at the culprits’ disregard for beauty and form.

The remnants of all past conflicts add to the fibre of the city which, despite the ravages of time, is proud of its past, excited by its present and confident of its future.

Beneath the battle wounds on a particularly striking building I notice the graffiti words scrawled in English, almost as a bold message to the world – “We now govern ourselves.”

And for Budapest, that’s been a long time coming.

An on location report from Austria and Central Europe by internqtional travel writer, Kevin Moloney.