Budapest: an audacious city

The pretty, and slightly camp, waiter with an appealing lisp, kept winking at Nigel.
“He fancies you,” I whispered, loudly. “He probably thinks that I am your mother.”
My husband had the grace to immediately pooh-hooh any suggestion that I looked old enough to be his big sister, let alone his mother.
“He’s probably got something in his eye,” he muttered. “Let’s go.”
But not before the camp waiter whispered in Nigel’s ear: “the tip is usually 10 per cent sir.”
You have to admire his audacity. And his home city, Budapest, is quite audacious too.
Hungary’s capital is split in two by the Danube, with Castle Hill and the Royal Palace gracing the Buda side of the river and the nation’s largest building, the Hungarian Parliament on the Pest side. Buda and Pest. Budapest.
The Parliament’s architect, Imre Steindl was certainly audacious, shameless even. His design for the neo-Gothic building is a homage to the Mother of Parliaments, Westminster.
No, I am too kind; it is almost a carbon copy, half close your eyes and you are on the bank of the Thames looking across the House of Commons.
The rest of the city centre feels a bit like central London. It is monumental in scale. Imposing buildings suggest a city, and a nation, that has a strong sense of itself.
Even the Westend City Center shopping mall, the scene of Nigel’s embarrassing encounter, has a touch of Trump Tower about it, with a waterfall at the main entrance and large leather couches for lounging scattered around the three floors. St James Centre please note.
Thirty-six hours is barely enough time to work out Budapest’s road system, let alone get to grips with the city, but Serbia is calling us, so tomorrow morning we set off for Subotica.
Now where is that map?