Budapest - with the parliament on the banks of the Danube
Technically two cities, the Hungarian capital Budapest is a fantastic place to visit. I went there in May 2004 and spent the best part of a week poking about in one of the most history-packed cities in Europe. You feel like you're definitely in Eastern Europe because of the blackened buildings and trabant-clogged streets, but Hungary is progressing rapidly - it joined the EU a couple of weeks before we arrived.
Divided by the Danube into the craggy, battlement-clad Buda and the flat, residential Pest, the city has seen plenty of action. During WWII the Germans and the Soviets lobbed shells at each other across the river, and the traumatic revolution only a few years later ripped the city apart again - you can see bullet holes in many of the buildings. So if you like history, just take a stroll around, you can almost feel it. When you throw in the great food and drink, bars, restaurants - and the fact that everything is dirt cheap - it's a great place for a break. If we hadn't have been fined for not having a ticket on the metro, it would have been almost perfect. Hungarian transit police show no mercy...
