Budapest: A Cultural and Literary History

The views of Budapest by the River Danube are unparalleled in Europe. On one side the Buda Hills reach almost to the riverside, with Castle Hill and Gellért Hill offering outstanding panoramas. Pest, linked to Buda by a series of imposing bridges, with
its mixture of late nineteenth-century Historicist and early twentieth-century Art Nouveau architecture, is still very much a turn-of-the-century city. For more than fifty years prior to the Second World War, Budapest was one of the outstanding
cultural capitals of Central Europe, on a par with, and in some ways in advance of Vienna and Prague. Now no longer hidden behind the Iron Curtain, much of that old atmosphere has returned. With its rich and often turbulent history, its unique thermal
baths, its excellent public transport system, its street cafés and broad-ranging cultural scene, Budapest is a captivating metropolis, currently being rediscovered as one of the liveliest cities in the region. Bob Dent has lived in Budapest since 1986.
He has written extensively on the city's cultural and political history.