Budapest was three towns until 1873: Buda on the hilly west bank, Óbuda north of it, and Pest on the flat east. The Chain Bridge of 1849 made the union practical and the union made the capital. A century and a half later the halves still feel different, and Hungarians still say Buda or Pest rather than Budapest when they mean where they live.
Buda is hills — Castle Hill, Gellért Hill, and the green residential slopes of Districts II and XII behind them. It is quieter, older in appearance, more expensive to live in, and has fewer places to eat.
Pest is flat and planned. Two great arcs organise it: the Kiskörút, the small boulevard, following the line of the medieval walls, and the Nagykörút, the Grand Boulevard, a long curve from Margaret Bridge round to Petőfi Bridge with trams 4 and 6 running its length. Cutting across them, Andrássy út runs dead straight from the centre to Heroes’ Square, with the M1 metro beneath it. Learn those three lines and the city stops being confusing.
The districts
Twenty-three of them, numbered in Roman numerals, and Hungarians use the numbers constantly. Postcodes encode them: the middle two digits of a four-digit Budapest postcode are the district, so 1075 is District VII.
For a short visit the ones that matter are V (the historic core of Pest), VI (Andrássy and the Opera), VII (the Jewish Quarter and the ruin bars), XIII (residential, north of Parliament), and I (Castle Hill).
The river
The Danube runs north to south through the middle, about three hundred metres wide, and it is the reason the city looks the way it does. The UNESCO World Heritage listing covers the banks, the Castle Quarter and Andrássy út together. Nine bridges cross within the city; the ones you will use are Margaret, Chain, Elizabeth, Liberty and Petőfi.
Every bridge in Budapest was destroyed by the retreating German army in the winter of 1944–45. All were rebuilt.
Scale
About 1.7 million people in the city, some three million in the metropolitan area — roughly a third of Hungary lives here, which is a very high concentration and shapes everything about the country’s politics and economy.
The centre is walkable. From the Parliament to the Great Market Hall is about three kilometres along the river, half an hour at a normal pace. The two banks are the only real obstacle, and only because you have to reach a bridge.
Language
Hungarian is not related to any of its neighbours’ languages — it is Finno-Ugric, distantly related to Finnish and Estonian and to nothing else nearby. It is genuinely hard and nobody expects you to speak it. English is widely spoken in the centre and among younger people; German is common, particularly with older Hungarians.
Jó napot is good day, köszönöm is thank you, egészségedre is cheers. Attempting any of them will be received warmly and corrected immediately.