Sitting on a white bench in the middle of Margaret island surrounded by matching white trellis, an array of pink and white flowers in full bloom and the gentle click of crickets and distant hum of laughter. I am alone for the first time in days. It gives me a chance to gather my reflections of Budapest, a city I found myself flying towards at the start of the week.
In reminiscence the thing that strikes me the most are the buildings. A selection of mystifying architecture that on paper is probably best described as confused. There appears to be no continuity between the renaissance style palaces and art nouveau houses, leaving an impression that is timeless in practice. Combined with the strange tin can buses and bright yellow trams, there is a feeling of cultures colliding.
Walking down the street with the wind blowing my curls about me in disarray I cannot draw my eyes from the structures that tower over me. They are consuming in their individually distinct character as they loom against the backdrop of the midday sky. It is easy to feel lost here, or at least to lose oneself. The ties of my life back home fade with rapid force and with the normal stresses dispersed I am free to at last be the person I know I am at core - entirely at ease in my surroundings.
Walking past parliament in the beating down sun and feeling a clarity in the slight breeze. Such calm may seem like a simple notion but it is one that is lost in London. Approaching the river and smelling the salty sea air, there's something almost Mediterranean about a city posed on rolling hills set to a foreground of silky waters. That's the thing about Budapest though, it's charm isn't rational. It's as if someone has taken all the magical elements of the countries of Europe and constructed one city of their own idealised imagination. Perhaps it is the yellow tint of my sunglasses that makes everything appear as through a filter, or the romanticism of being in a foreign land but neither the lens of my camera nor my words can capture the essence of being in a new place, separated from the endless buzz of a city too familiar.
As we coax back into the mainland, night has fallen upon the decadent structures of the palaces. The skyline is dotted with illuminated steeples and a slither of moon that hangs low, observing the bodies beneath. A place has never felt so close to magic as we drift back among the other enchanted figures, ready for it's spell to breeze over us once more.
With the days remaining in our recent home diminishing, final promises of Turkish baths and jazz clubs linger on the horizon. The next leg of our adventure will see us travel 6 hours by train to the sunny forts of Croatia and what I anticipate will be the considerably less peaceful surroundings of Outlook festival. The only thing I'm sure of is the prospect of returning to England's awaiting arms is becoming increasingly undesirable with each passing day.
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