Budapest is a city of monumental buildings crossed by large boulevards lined up by lavish villas hidden behind leafy trees. A city that strives to prove that is still an important capital of a once powerful but now vanished empire, the capital of Hungary whose choices in history made it smaller and smaller.

While walking in Pest you could see from many locations the palace perched on the hill across the Danube. Buda Castle was the seat of the Hungarian kings ruling from Buda established as capital in 1361. Buda and Pest were separate cities. They united and formed Budapest in 1873 making it the second-largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after Vienna. Nearby, on Buda hill is the Fishermen’s Bastion, a romantic reinforcement built at the beginning of the 20th century and Mathias Church. From the top of the hill there are great views of the beautiful bridges that cross the Danube, Elizabeth and Széchenyi Bridge, Budapest’s famous chained bridge.

A stroll in Pest, on the Eastern bank of the Danube, is a walk of discovery where the new is entwined with the old. The newly opened museums like the Ethnographic Museum and the House of Music from the City Park are splendid architectural jewels while House of Terror tells the story of Nazi and Soviet occupation of Hungary.

And after such a long walk in Pest the best place to chill is in one of the Ruined Pub, swanky bars built in former abandoned buildings, most of them developed in the Jewish Quarter. The first pioneer ruined bar in Budapest, Szimpla Kert opened in 2002 .