My all time favorite city is turning 150 years old today!
It is rare that we know the exact day a city was born, but as Budapest was formed with uniting the cities of Pest, Buda, and Óbuda on November 17, 1873. Ever since then the city known as Budapest has served as the capital of Hungary (I hope Hungarians reading this were singing along to Hello Tourist), first as part of the dual-monarchy (aka. Austria-Hungary), and then of the independent country.
Of course when first founded Budapest looked very different. Over the first 85 years it has extended its borders both by urbanization of previously unsettled areas, or taking over independent villages and towns, like Kispest, incorporating them as districts in the 1950’s. No significant changes have happened since the 90’s, and today Budapest has 23 districts.
As I mentioned, Budapest is my absolutely favorite city, and I’m fortunate to live here. I do enjoy visiting elsewhere, both in Hungary and abroad, but Budapest, with its bustling, noisy, crowded, never stopping feel is home.
Budapest is a favorite place to film movies. It has stood in for everywhere from Buenos Aires to Prague to New York City. We gave great tax breaks for foreign film companies, so for Jack Ryan season 3 not only the Budapest scenes were filmed here, but Moscow looks suspiciously a lot like Museum of Agriculture and other landmarks in Budapest.
So This Woman 