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JUNE-JULY 2012
WIZZ MAGAZINE
25
CREDIT
All the best in dining, shopping and
clubbing – as enjoyed by city regulars
BUDAPEST
THREE WAYS
Words
Peterjon Cresswell
Photography
Tom Robinson
Illustration
Kerry Hyndman
E
asy to get around and wholly
eye-catching, Hungary’s capital is
blessed with equally enchanting
hills and backstreets. Divided by
the Danube (a focal point in itself), it is a
city of contrasting halves –Buda and Pest.
Hilly Buda is pretty, moneyed and (mainly)
residential, while flat Pest is a grid pattern
of tightly packed streets where the daily
bustle of business takes place. Buda is all
bicycles and birdsong, Pest belching buses
and bright neon.
Within this wider context, Buda
and Pest can also be defined by their
neighbourhoods, which offer the visitor
different aspects of the city. While many
are happy to skip back and forth over the
Danube to find the best spots to shop, dine
and drink, others prefer to explore the
shopping, dining and drinking scenes within
individual localities.
Each makes best use of its surroundings.
Restaurants in Buda’s river-hugging
Tabán come with scenic terraces. Shops
in downtown Pest are in harder-to-find
corners of District V with bright, striking
clothes in fashionable cabinets contrasting
with an age-old ironmongers or butchers
next door. In the pub hub of District VII,
each venue is within a few hundred metres
of the next, some two dozen spots invitingly
clustered for a diverse bar crawl. Each
lends itself to a day’s exploration in its own
right, providing entertainment, variety and
the chance to dine like a local. Here are the
three neighbourhoods in detail.