Not only does snow have a smell, but it also has a very particular way of filtering light as it sneaks into the apartment on winter mornings. In all honestly, calling it light might be an overstatement, it is more a state of darkness that is incomplete, an undecided darkness, a confused darkness, a darkness…
Category: city walks
January Fog along the Danube
Yesterday, while strolling by the Danube, and seeing, in a first phase frankly nothing, and then an odd shape here and there, it dawned on me that I haven’t written a weather complaint based piece for a long time, and since I consider myself pretty good at this exercise, such failings must be promptly corrected,…
A Tourist at Home- Autumn in Arad
I recently read a piece about how our experience of time changes as we age– namely, we feel that time passes faster than when we were younger. Which, since I just started getting irked by the prospect of Christmas shopping when I know for a fact that yesterday was a balmy day in May,…
Rust, Gold and an Angry Poet: Autumn on Gellért Hill
Let’s say you woke up one day and suddenly had no idea what season it was, perhaps a strange sort of weather amnesia, but figured you’re in Budapest, and in such cases your go to solution should definitely be Gellért hill: firstly, it’s rather easy to spot from many central areas, particularly the Danube promenade, and secondly,…
A Glimpse into the Hidden Budapest
One of my most frequent compulsions when walking the streets of Budapest is stealing a furtive glance into the inner courtyards of the houses when an unsuspecting inhabitant is going in, perhaps lingering a few seconds to hoist a shopping bag or lead a reluctant mutt over the threshold. Every now and then, I glimpse…
Andrássy Avenue with a Twist or Two
It all began with the thought that we should have a walk along the stretch of Andrássy which starts at Oktogon and ends at Heroes’ Square- I am completely partial to this bit of the avenue, with its ivy clad villas and stately air, as opposed to the shop and tourist infested half that heads…
Suddenly Beethoven: A Visit to Városmajor and Kis-Sváb-Hegy
The newest installment of our investigation of Budapest’s outré places led us to that most outré of locations, The Square Formerly (and Forever) Known as Moszkva, from where a short walk allowed us to better inspect the city park going by the name of Városmajor. We’d of course often glanced Városmajor, either form a tram…
A (Not So) Bottomless Lake
Lake Feneketlen (Bottomless) has always been a Budapest mystery to me. Obviously it cannot, should not, must not be bottomless- though here we touch upon another thing I can’t do, which is swim properly, so in all honestly anything above 1.5 metres qualifies as bottomless to me, for if I cannot safely probe the ground…
Spring in the Buda Arboretum
We went into the weekend under the dark auspices of one of those classical Budapest weather forecasts, which claimed that we’d again have two miserable days before spring came back on Monday. But either spring was very stubborn, or the crystal globe was broken, because the sunshine soldiered on. To fair to the meteorological institute,…
Weekend Walks- Rózsadomb and Bits of the Second District
This was a walk we took in the weekend prior to becoming 100% involved with Sziget, so that is my grand excuse for posting them only now, but let’s say they are still relevant for a possible August 20th festive walk away from the celebratory throngs. We started off from Moszkva square- where the…
Pocket Diary Budapest 