I’m more than a bit worried for Budapest. After visiting the city for just 4 days I can see that its defences are down, and it is totally unaware of its impending fate. Because the thing about Budapest is, it’s just so bloody nice. Either you’ve been there yourself, and so have been carelessly spreading the word about it for a couple of years already, or you’ve already heard from your friends in their post-interrailing loose-tongued state. Just like planet earth and global warming, Budapest is at a crucial tipping point: the British tourism tipping point.
So many people are catching on to the secret that it is basically a warmer, cheaper, friendlier, funner Paris, that eventually it will be the next Paris. There’ll be British people scurrying across the Chain bridge like a blight of red ants in no time. The restaurants will start cooking up batches of chips, bars will serve drinks out of fish bowls to inbetweenerslook-a-likes, and the locals’ Hungarian hospitality willundoubtedly wear thin.
But I have a dirty secret to tell. I think I might have just helped to push it over the edge. My trip wasn’t just some city-break with friends, or mad last minute dash with the work-weary family – I went to Budapest with a guy who was looking to latch on to the Eastern European hype while there still remains a dearth of travel journalism on the place. Collecting research for a national newspaper, he got a free few nights’ stay in the Four Seasons, and who am I but a poor little student who is certainly not going to say no to tagging along on a trip like that?
I wasn’t going to play it cool either. This being my only holiday this year, my mentality was ‘go hard or go home’. It started in the airport – I couldn’t help myself. I went straight to Smiths and bought the most comprehensive travel guide I could find on the city. Completely ignoring my friend on the plane, I devoured that book cover to cover, pen at hand, annotating a great unfurled map at my side. I didn’t stop till the job was done.
Once we were at the hotel, I discovered something even more deliciously satiating than that. Coming from a family who believes that your own room in the tent in Wales is travel luxury, I had never before encountered the joys of a concierge. That lovely man standing at his desk all day long, just waiting to impart his wealth of wisdom on the secrets of the city to you. There’s even a little button on the phone in the room that connects you straight through to him.
Safe to say then that I was the best, most informative little travel writer’s helper for those four days, and as a consequence, we visited everything that Budapest had to offer.We went to the Schenzyi Baths at night, when DJs played to throngs of bikini clad party goers in the sulphurous waters. We marvelled at the beauty of secessionist painting and architecture in the Castle District. We ate delicious goulash and feasted on traditionally cooked duck breast in restaurants ranging from the delightfully kitsch to the imposingly beautiful. We whiled away the hours exploring the multifarious rooms of the eclectically furnished ruin pubs and clubs of the Jewish district.
It was the perfect holiday, and it makes me feel all the worse for it. Because Budapest doesn’t deserve the wrath of a million drunk Englishmen who just want to chew it up and spit it out after a 7 day bender. So, don’t believe what my friend tells you when the news hits the stands. Don’t book your ticket, put your bucket hat back on the shelf, and let’s all just leave that smiling Hungarian city alone.
