Budapest in your pocket [antikvár]

INTRODUCTION It has been said that Budapest is built on water, and is known as 'Queen of the Danube' for its many spas. The 'dustless highway', as medieval chroniclers called the Danube flowing between Buda and Pest, was once a frontier line for the Romans, then a trade and invasion route for others. On each side of it, hot water trapped by a geological fault gushes to the surface, producing a myriad of exploitable springs. Small wonder that the original Celtic inhabitants called their settlement on the Buda bank 'abundant waters', a name adapted by the Romans to Aquincum. The three cities of Budapest (Buda, Pest and Óbuda) have been fought over time and time again. Since Béla IV built the first stone fortress on Buda Hill after devastation by Mongols in 1241-42, no less than 31 sieges of the fortifications have been plotted by archaeologists. The stoical, not to say pessimistic, attitude of the city's inhabitants is a reflection of this violent and precarious past. Behind the façade of tourist attractions -the kitsch of csárdás, gypsy bands and steaming bowls of goulash - there lies a world of ingenious survivors and talented dreamers. The dreams are reflected in some of the overblown 19C architecture, like the enormous eclectic Parliament on the Pest bank of the Danube, or the patriotic monuments on Heroes' Square. But alongside the chasers of dreams are the shrewd entrepreneurs with their feet firmly on the ground, the men who made Pest into a great hub of business in the 19C. In the late 20C, as Hungary steps out on 4