The more I learn about Budapest the more odd it seems how undefined it is in people's minds. It is a city with more than a thousand years of history, spectacular architecture and a million stories to tell. 

 

Yet somehow because it doesn't have a Coliseum, or an Eifel Tower, an Acropolis or a Leaning Tower to distinguish it, it remains obscure. It's never been featured in a pop culture standard movie like Vienna in "The Sound of Music." Nor was it mythologized by the counter culture like Prague. It remains enigmatic, aloof, lesser known.

 

It boasts no iconic images or ubiquitous poster prints, just long ages of history and the teeming soul of a European metropolis, waiting to be discovered.But ultimately that's its attraction. It has the mystique of the arcane and the exotic but is utterly shrouded. With most European destinations, one must meet it first on its obligatory public face, the must-see's and the clichés. But the sensation one gets in contemplating a trip to Budapest is, that wherever one might look, they will be met with a surprise, an unknown, a unique perspective worth absorbing.

 

I do not mean to suggest it has consciously attempted to hide itself. But due to the vagaries of time and tourism, it remains a largely unaccounted destination, neither forbidding nor forbidden, but simply undiscovered.