© Richard HuangToday was the first day of our Viking river cruise. As luck would have it, Budapest is home to what are billed as the world’s most beautiful café and most beautiful McDonald’s. The plan was breakfast at the café, lunch at McDonald’s, and, in between, a visit to the magnificent Hungarian Parliament Building. We would board the ship in the afternoon.
© Richard HuangThe New York Café opened in 1894 inside the New York Palace. The palace is itself a spectacular building, richly decorated in the Baroque and Renaissance Revival styles. The café’s interior is equally grand, renowned for its sumptuous paintings, marble, ornate plasterwork, and crystal chandeliers.
© Richard HuangThe café does not take reservations, so everyone has to wait in line. I had heard that the queues could be very long, but the place is spacious, with plenty of tables, and fewer people were waiting than I had imagined. In the end, the wait was not too bad. There was certainly no faulting the setting: it fully deserved its reputation as the world’s most beautiful café. The food was decent, if a little expensive, while the service was merely so-so. Perhaps the sheer volume of visitors has made everything formulaic and rather rigid. It felt as though we had come for the title and ended up eating an upmarket fast-food breakfast. I cannot even remember what we ordered.
© Richard HuangLeaving the New York Café, we made our way to the Hungarian Parliament Building. Standing on the bank of the Danube in central Budapest, it is monumental and deeply impressive—one of the finest surviving examples of Gothic Revival and Renaissance Revival architecture anywhere in the world.
© Richard HuangThe Parliament Building stands on the Pest side of the Danube, with many celebrated landmarks visible across the river. Buda Castle, for example, crowns Castle Hill on the western bank. It is linked to Pest by the famous Chain Bridge. With a history stretching back to the thirteenth century, the castle was once the palace of the Hungarian kings and an important political and cultural center in the country’s history.
© Richard HuangNearby stands St. Margaret’s Cathedral, a well-known church in Budapest’s Castle District, next to Fisherman’s Bastion.
© Richard HuangIn Kossuth Square before the Parliament Building stands a statue of Count Gyula Andrássy. An eminent statesman and diplomat, he played an important role in the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867, which secured autonomy for Hungary within Austria-Hungary. He also served as Hungary’s first prime minister under the new arrangement and later as foreign minister. The statue was originally erected in 1906, removed by the Communist government in 1945 for ideological reasons, and reconstructed in 2016.
© Richard HuangThe dome is one of the building’s defining features. Rising from its center to a height of 96 meters, it makes Parliament one of Hungary’s tallest buildings. Designed in the Neo-Gothic style, with spires, vaulting, and intricate details, it is both ornate and imposing. Its many carvings and embellishments evoke elements of Hungarian history and culture, underscoring the complexity and refinement of the architecture.
© Richard HuangVisiting the interior requires a guided-tour ticket, which costs forty euros; both a guide and security officers accompany visitors throughout. The tour includes the Gold Room, named for its lavish decoration. Its walls and ceiling are covered in delicate gold leaf, while the lighting and ornamental details display a blend of Renaissance and Baroque styles. There is also the Crown Jewels Hall, where the Holy Crown and royal regalia are kept. Guards stand watch over the crown, and photography is forbidden.
© Richard HuangThe Hungarian Parliament has two principal debating chambers: the National Assembly Chamber and the Upper House Chamber, where legislators conduct their business.
© Richard HuangAt the end of the tour, we returned to the entrance, where there was a virtual-reality attraction. Visitors put on headsets that took them “flying” over the roof of Parliament for panoramic views of the building and Budapest. It set me thinking about travel. If all we want from modern travel is visual pleasure—a look at the world’s most beautiful this or most beautiful that—there is really no need to make an arduous journey just to tick a place off a list. We could stay at home, put on a VR headset, and examine every last detail of wherever we planned to visit. Advances in technology are changing both the meaning of travel and the way we experience it.
© Richard HuangAfter leaving Parliament, we headed for the so-called world’s most beautiful McDonald’s. It occupies a historic building beside Nyugati Railway Station and retains many of the structure’s original features, including its magnificent vaulted ceiling and period décor.
© Richard HuangThe restaurant is spread over two floors. Coffee, desserts, and seating are upstairs, while the usual ordering counters are below. Online commenters rave about the surroundings, saying that eating McDonald’s there feels like dining in a museum. But the place was packed with tourists, and both ordering and collecting our food took ages. Everything was in Hungarian; the staff spoke little English and were unfriendly to boot, hence the flood of negative reviews online. I added one of my own without hesitation. A “most beautiful McDonald’s” like this is best viewed through a VR headset. There is no need to experience it in person.
© Richard HuangAfter lunch, we returned to the hotel for our luggage and boarded the ship. The Viking riverboat was spacious and imposing in design, with an opulent interior. Broad, seamless floor-to-ceiling windows gave the vessel a clean, streamlined look. Reflected in the glass were the varied and distinctive buildings lining the Danube—an irresistible sight. Once we had dropped off our bags and settled in, the temptation proved too strong: we went straight back out.
© Richard HuangThere are two streets no shopper should miss in Budapest. One is Andrássy Avenue, the upscale shopping street we had walked along the day before. The other is Váci Street, an old pedestrian shopping street near the Danube.
© Richard HuangThough not very long, the pedestrian street is lined with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings and has plenty of shops, restaurants, and cafés.
© Richard HuangMany of its shops cater to tourists, selling antiques and paintings, handicrafts, fashion items, and souvenirs.
© Richard HuangWe returned to the ship for dinner that evening, beginning several days of eating and drinking to our hearts’ content, at no extra cost—and entering full weight-gain mode. Three meals a day, food and drink included: the menu changes according to the cuisine of each place we pass, with German beer and pork knuckle served when the ship reaches Germany, for example. The huge floor-to-ceiling windows reflected the lively clinking of glasses inside. Beyond them, Liberty Bridge—the bridge we had visited on arriving—spanned the Danube in silence. More and more sightseeing boats appeared, gliding past one after another. The view was so beautiful that we could not help putting down our bowls and chopsticks and stepping out into the night ourselves.
© Richard HuangHeading south, we reached Elisabeth Bridge, named after Empress Elisabeth of Austria—the celebrated Princess Sisi. Construction began in 1897, and the bridge was completed in 1903. In the distance, we could see the Liberty Statue on the hill.
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Beneath Elisabeth Bridge, we came across an intriguing scene: an open-air film screening, probably entertainment provided by one of the riverside ruin bars. Watching a movie beside the Danube, surrounded by so many famous buildings, sounded wonderful even in the abstract. Unfortunately, we could not understand a word.
© Richard HuangFarther along stood the famous Széchenyi Chain Bridge, one of the city’s main transport links. Construction began in 1839 and was completed in 1849. Built in the Romantic style, it is an elegant suspension bridge with stone piers and iron chains—hence its name. A full moon hung overhead, and the mingled glow of moonlight and lamps made the beautiful bridge lovelier still.
© Richard HuangFrom the bridge, we could see St. Margaret’s Cathedral and Fisherman’s Bastion, both of which we had seen that morning.
© Richard HuangWe also had a distant view of Parliament in all its grandeur. Night had veiled the bustle and disorder of the daytime, leaving the illuminated building serene and dazzling.
© Richard HuangAs I was photographing Buda Palace, it suddenly vanished from my viewfinder. I looked up and discovered that, at exactly eleven o’clock, the lights illuminating all the sights had been switched off. The measure makes the city safer. Had I not witnessed it myself, I would never have known.
(The original video is not included in the local archive and has not yet been migrated.)
We had little choice but to head back. Along the way, we came across another ruin bar, this one displaying paintings: a place for drinking that also served as a space for artistic exchange. After leaving the bar, we met three teenage boys dancing in perfect unison in the street to music from a small speaker they carried. There was a carefree abandon to them. Unfortunately, the light was too poor for us to capture it on camera. We caught up and started talking. My overall impression was that Hungary’s young people were guileless, friendly, and well-mannered. Perhaps the world around them offers them few opportunities, so they linger by the river and while away their spare time. That may be one reason ruin bars have become so popular in Budapest.
© Richard HuangToday we visited what are billed as the world’s most beautiful café and most beautiful McDonald’s, though both fell a little short of expectations. After boarding, we discovered how beautiful the Viking ship was; walking beside the Danube, we marveled at the still greater beauty of Budapest by night. The people and happenings we encountered along the river—the outdoor film, the art exhibition in a bar, and the dancing teenagers—were all unexpected experiences that added surprise and lingering pleasure to the journey. They also filled us with anticipation for what lay ahead, bringing our day in beautiful Budapest to a perfect close.
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