Property Hungary

Hungary entered the EU in May, 15 years after the fall of communism. Already Budapest is a new place, and everyone has a car. But don’t be put off: the city’s old pleasures — the music, the thermal spas and boating on the Danube — will stay for ever.

If you’re buying a house in Budapest, the first question is shall it be Buda, or Pest? Or their suburbs? Buda is the city’s steep acropolis, with the royal castle (rebuilt after 1945) on top and a lower town below beside the great river that separates Buda from Pest. Linking the two is the 1840s Chain Bridge, a suspension bridge designed by William Tierney Clark after he did Marlow Bridge across the Thames. The first bridge downstream of Vienna to have been built since the Romans, it leads into the heart of Pest on the flat ground the other side. In the heyday of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Pest blossomed as the new city centre — a place of boulevards, green spaces, cafés by the river and belle époque buildings, with an Opera House to rival Paris or — more important — Vienna, and substantial, architecturally eclectic houses and apartment blocks.