Ebook: Hungary: The Rough Guide

The most easy-going country in the Socialist bloc, Hungary has a culture that draws on Western and Central Europe while remaining true to its Magyar roots. Ruined castles, Turkish mosques, and Habsburg palaces are reminders of overlords whom the Magyars eventually tamed, and a similar strategy has been adopted towards Soviet communism, which the Hungarians began reforming long before Gorbachev. The old joke that a Hungarian can enter a revolving door behind you and come out ahead says much about their resourcefulness and wit.

With its coffee houses, baths, and boulevards, Budapest is as elegant a capital as any in Europe - and an exciting place, very much the meeting point of East and West. Moving out, the historic towns of the Danube Bend and Transdanubia, and the 'Nation's Playground' of Lake Balaton, are only the most obvious (and easily reached) attractions. Further afield there are the wine towns, fortresses, and forests of the mountainous Northern Uplands, and the little-visited Great Plain with its succession of summer festivals.

Besides detailing accommodation and restaurants, costs, red tape, and other practicalities, the Rough Guide provides contexts in the form of history, jokes and pieces on such diverse topics as folk music, gypsy rights or minority rights in Transylvania. No other guide offers such a wide-ranging, readable introduction to Hungary.