Chains Bridge over the Danube River in Budapest (Hungary)

 
“O Danúbio, pensei, era o Danúbio mas não era azul, era amarelo, a cidade toda era amarela, os telhados, o asfalto, os parques, engraçado isso, uma cidade amarela, eu pensava que Budapeste fosse cinzenta, mas Budapeste era amarela.”

Chico Buarque

Chains Bridge spanning the Danube River in Budapest (Hungary)

"Buda" comes from the name of its founder, Bleda, brother of Hunnic ruler Attila.. Attila went in the city of Sicambria in Pannonia, where he killed Buda, his brother, and he threw his corpse into the Danube. For while Attila was in the west, his brother crossed the boundaries in his reign, because he named Sicambria after his own name Buda's Castle.

Legend of Budapest origin

Szechenyi Bridge over the Danube River in Budapest (Hungary)

Respect the past so that you can understand the present and work on the future.

Istvan Szechenyi

Elizabeth Bridge over the Danube River in Budapest (Hungary)

As I was returning home for the last time

the wars had just ended,
And in entangled and ruined Budapest
Many shops were left breadless and empty.
Crouching on train-roofs I brought you potatoes,
While the sack was filled with millet already;
Stubborn me, I had got a chicken for you,
But you were nowhere to be.

...

In a poem by Attila Jozseff

Liberty Bridge over the Danube River in Budapest (Hungary)

Tú eres la dueña de las palabras, amor mío,
la que vierte en los labios el vino de Tokaj
y la lluvia harapienta
en las cajas de música
de la calle Dohány.
La que respira en los puentes
bajo el Danubio rojo,
la que construye nidos
en los huecos de las palabras,
la que ahuyenta los miedos
en los desfiladeros del Ejército Rojo.
....

Budapest

by Angel Petiseme

Chains Bridge spanning the river Danube in Budapest (Hungary)

As a centre for receiving and disseminating cultural influences, Budapest is an outstanding example of urban development in Central Europe, characterised by periods of devastation and revitalisation. Budapest has retained the separate structural characteristics of the former cities of Pest, Buda and Óbuda.

Budapest as UNESCO World Heritage Site

Szabadság Híd (Liberty Bridge) across the Danube River in Budapest (Hungary)

 
“It’s beautiful here. They said that of course, that Budapest is beautiful. But it is in fact almost ludicrously beautiful.”

Anthony Bourdain

Széchenyi Chain Bridge crossing the Danube River in Budapest (Hungary)

My house in Budapest,
My hidden treasure chest
Golden grand piano
My beautiful castillo

You, ooh, you. Ooh, I’d leave it all

My acres of a land
I have achieved
It may be hard for you to
Stop and believe

In the song Budapest

George Ezra

Chains Bridge over the Danube River in Budapest (Hungary)

 A Magyar I! With pride I cast my eye

Over the sea of history past and see

Vast, mighty rocks that almost reach the sky;

They are my nation's deeds of bravery.

We, too, were acting once on Europe's stage,

And ours was not an empty, easy role!

When, at the play, our sword we drew in rage

All feared us, as the child the thunder's roll.

Poem I am Magyar

Alexander Petofi

Old Elisabeth Bridge crossing the Danube River in Budapest (Hungary)

"...So there he was, opposite to me, in the bridge, all because suddenly he had a bridge again. Not many, just one bridge. Ah but what a bridge! You weren´t there when they built it, so you can´t know how much it meant to us when we heard that Budapest, that great metropoli, had a bridge over the Danube once more."

Excerpt from Portraits of a Marriage

Sándor Marai

Liberty Bridge (Francis Joseph Bridge) across the Danube River in Budapest (Hungary)

"Budapest is a prime site for dreams: the East’s exuberant vision of the West, the West’s uneasy hallucination of the East."

From the novel The course of the Heart

Michel John Harrison

Chains Bridge over the Danube River in Budapest (Hungary)

As I sat on the bottom step of the wharf,
A melon-rind flowed by with the current;
Wrapped in my fate I hardly heard the chatter
Of the surface, while the deep was silent.
As if my own heart had opened its gate:
The Danube was turbulent, wise and great

By the Danube

Attila Josezf

Széchenyi Chain Bridge over the Danube River in Budapest (Hungary)

Chief engineer Adam Clark, a master builder from Scotland, completed the span in 1849. Legend has it that he was so proud of his masterpiece he would challenge anyone to find any fault with his work. When it was discovered that the lions at either ends of the bridge didn't have tongues, he was so ashamed that he committed suicide.

Legend of the Chain Bridge

Széchenyi Chain Bridge over the Danube River in Budapest (Hungary)

“The Danube is not blue, as Karl Isidore Beck calls it in the lines which suggested to Strauss the fetching, mendacious title of his waltz. The Danube is blond… as the Hungarians say, but even that ‘blond’ is a Magyar gallantry, or a French one, since in 1904 Gaston Lavergnolle called it Le Beau Danube blond. More down to earth, Jules Verne thought of entitling a novel Le Beau Danube jaune. Muddy yellow is the water that grows murky at the bottom of these steps.”

Claudio Magris