Fifteen Years Later

It's strange walking around this city and having memories jump out at you from nowhere. It's been 15 years since we lived here in Budapest. There is gentrification and probably more tourism than we remember, but it's also unchanged in a lot of ways. Today we just wandered around to all the places we used to go. Our old street, Madach, with its characteristic arch has been improved. The lovely fountain/plaza used to be an old ratty parking lot:

The Renyi Institute, where we were in residence for the year, looks much the same:

Barges still go up and down the Danube:

The trams still visit the big market:

The big market still has lots of locals and tourists:

But there were perhaps a few more vacancies than before, especially in the basement stalls. The Princess bakery still has mini chocolate croissants:

And they're still good:

There's a giant ferris wheel on Deak Ter that wasn't there 15 years ago:

The Chain Bridge and the beautiful circle on the Buda side is much the same:

Matthias Church in the castle district looks the same, perhaps a bit cleaner:

The Parliament building is splendid as usual and no scaffolding (as there was when we lived here):

The "shiny balls" horse is still there and his balls are still pretty shiny. The urban legend is that people rub this horse's balls for luck. Given the highly polished nature of the balls in question, I'd say it's more than legend:

Moskva ter is now Széll Kálmán tér. I guess this renaming is just the continuing distancing of Hungary from Russia. It's also been completely renovated. It's much cleaner and greener than it was:

We spent a lot of time with Emily and Rachel in Millenaris Park. The beautiful spring weather made this the perfect place to spend some time today:

This evening we went for traditional Hungarian fare at one of my favorite restaurants, Fatal:

  We both had gulash and I had a Dreher beer:

 

Both were amazing. I saved a little of each for the post dinner photo. On the way back to the hotel, we enjoyed watching some children dare the fountain on Madach:


I watched knowing with 100% surety that if this fountain had been there 15 years ago, Emily and Rachel would've done the same thing.