Budapest ranks near the top of “ones that got away” in my tour of Europe’s great cities more than two years ago – which made it a natural as my one “new place to visit” on this minitrip, sandwiched in between those more familiar locales that would bookend the journey.

Alas, it began with one hiccup – or more accurately, a sore throat. Sickness is the bane of every traveler; this goes double for shorter escapes where a nasty bug might span much of a journey. My near-nonstop socializing in London was good fun, but by toward the end of my time there I felt a dispiritingly familiar tingle in my throat – and not simply from vocal (or other) oral exertions. Soon after came the familiar sniffles and such, and for the first time in my overseas travels, I had a bit of a cold.

Aside from that, though, travel was smooth: an early-morning departure from Renaissance Man’s flat, a tube ride to Paddington Station, a train ride to Heathrow, and a quick flight across the Continent. England’s tidy hedgerows and farms gave way to the undulating shoreline of the English Channel and the fields of northern France. The weather, as has been the case my entire time here so far, was glorious.

A smooth flight across the Channel and Continent, then a drop-off care of an airport shuttle at my guesthouse, a gay-owned joint I’d found online located on the third floor of a respectably-maintained Art Nouveau structure. At first I was trepidatious: the building’s ancient, creaky little elevator and no signage indicating my accommodations made me wonder… is this a scam? But I found it, and within moments was greeted by Shandor, middle-aged co-owner of the KM Saga and at least as solicitous and helpful as any official guide. In addition to the usual tourist brochures he also handed me the town’s gay nightlife guide. While Budapest isn’t quite the Central European party spot that is Prague, it apparently always boasted a gay scene – even in Communism’s heyday – and remains the region’s second-biggest such spot after the Czech capital.

The guesthouse itself, meanwhile, was a charmer in its own way: overstuffed period furnishings, themed rooms named after composers (mine was the “Beethoven,” complete with stern bust of Ludwig Van glowering over my bedside), gold-leafed chandeliers, and random knickknacks and doodads that straddled the line between classical elegance and high kitsch. Best part: a king-size bed emerging out of a headboard settee. I loved it immediately.

Thank heavens for such comforts (at a steal of a price, natch – Budapest accommodations are still cheap by Euro standards): deciding to play it safe with my lingering “bubons” (as Jon Stewart terms it anytime he gets sick), I napped and headed out after dark to Raday utca, a nearby pedestrian street, for a bite of dinner. A respectable – and eminently filling – dose of chicken paprikash.

Hungary’s development since the fall of Communism has been alright, though not quite as ebullient as Poland, Latvia, or the Czech Republic. The place still feels like a work in progress, with rundown and smartly-restored Art Nouveau buildings running down long, straight streets. Or so it felt as I wandered through Pest, the mostly flat half of this city on the eastern bank of the Danube.

A glance at the history books tells why: like most of Europe, the town’s had tremendous turmoil through the centuries, though in its case some of it lingers into the present. It’s one of the Continent’s oldest settlements, with evidence of human habitation dating back deep into prehistory. It was a Roman garrison – Aquincum – on the Empire’s northeastern frontier along the Danube. Occupying a similar transitional zone as, say, the Levant, this bridge between East and West was fought over continuously: Christians, Ottoman Turks, Austrian Habsburgs, German Nazis, and Soviet Russians came and went through the ages.

As with Vienna, Austria-Hungary’s western center, the city’s real heyday was in the latter half of the 19^th Century, when many of its belle epoque edifices went up and bridges were built across the Danube.

A relaxing meander around City Park then a stroll down leafy Andrássy útca, the city’s answer to the Champs-Élysées, proved a worthy tonic to my sinus congestion and sniffles. I wasn’t really in a museum mood, but one otherwise-handsome building on the wide, tree-lined boulevard caught my eye: the House of Terror. Its pretty façade is lined by a jutting rooftop metal canopy spelling the words TERROR in mirror-backward writing, so the the sun’s rays shine the letters onto the building itself right-side up.

Once the headquarters for Hungary’s Nazi-leaning Arrow Cross, then later used by the repressive Communists as a dungeon and Ministry of Love-ish prison, the place effectively recounts the bad old days of dictatorship and repression. It’s all very well done, with padded cell-style corridors, TVs blaring black-and-white interviews of former political prisoners, and a giant tank standing guard in the central courtyard. The actual dungeons – in the basement of the building – are as squalid and horrific as any concentration camp: dank arching stone walls, hard wooden barracks, rusty commodes, grimy translucent barred windows. I don’t know why I’m so fascinated by such places – in Prague, Riga, and Moscow I also made sure to visit relics of and memorials to former totalitarian regimes – but I leave here equally edified and spooked.

Okay, then. As compensation for brutality, some grandeur and delight. As much as Vienna, Budapest was once home to a thriving café culture. Many closed over the decades or were replaced by establishments of the more modern, Starbucks-ian variety (though, interestingly, I spotted nary a trace of the American coffee chain the entire time I was in the city). But a few remain: Lukács Café’s chandeliers and white-and-gold-leaf trim proved a worthy place to enjoy a tasty (but pricey) cappuccino and delectable chocolate cake (what else?)

Ambling on toward the river, I came upon the hulking, wedding-cake Parliament building, all domed and spired and wedding-cake grand as befits a grand old European capital. Turning the corner onto the riverwalk of the (mostly) blue Danube, I observed something the Magyar capital has over its Austrian cousin: while both lie nominally on the great European waterway, in Vienna the river proper flows a ways out of the city center. But in Budapest, the river runs through it better than old Robert Redford could have imagined: the city is in fact a portemanteau of two formerly separate towns (Buda and Pest), each hugging the broad waterway (and it is broad – one of Europe’s bigger ones, I’d say).

Having meandered the Pest side one day, I opted for Buda the next. The two towns, although separated by nothing more than a river, feel as different as, say, Detroit and Windsor back home (albeit far, far more beautiful than both): Pest’s 19^th Century broad, straight streets contrast with Buda’s steep hillsides and curvy byways. To get there I opted for the scenic route, crossing on foot via the Chain Bridge, one of the world’s first suspension bridges dating back to the 1840s. It’s an adorable little structure, a Disney-sized variant of, say, the Brooklyn Bridge, which it predates by half a century. On the bridge, the city’s set-pieces were on show: a couple smooched under one of the bridge’s towers; more dispiritingly, an elderly Gypsy woman begged for change – practically the only such character I saw in my time here (yes, Budapest has fewer homeless than wealthy San Francisco). On the other side, past a florally-festooned traffic circle, lay the funicular to the top of Castle Hill. Here’s where the local flavor vanished and the touristic took over: I heard English spoken widely for the first time, most especially by a surprisingly rotund and rowdy gang from Toronto.

“Pretend this car is full, or it’ll be a sweat box!” said one camera-toter as we clambered into one compartment of the diminutive funicular.

“I can’t believe it’s not air conditioned!”

Oh, dude. Really? It was a warmish day but the splendid ride up the peak lasted maybe two minutes. At the top, predictably grand views across the river, toward Pest. On one side lay the city’s Royal Palace and on the other, the former “commoners” homes of the winding, medieval town – far simpler sloped roofs, and none of the Art Nouveau adornments found across the river. Adjacent the castle, some walled ruins – although Aquincum is a bit north of medieval (and present-day) Buda, these could have been contemporaneous but were more likely later – this place has had many masters, and like Middle Eastern spots such as Jerusalem or Megiddo, one set of invaders sacked, then rebuilt, often on the same spot.

A sci-fi and spookiness-obsessed friend had insisted I visit the underground cave network running beneath the castle. The so-named Labyrinth, which opened onto the street from a run-of-the-mill building on a town street, at first looked like another cheesy tourist trap: hordes of screaming schoolchildren at the entrance didn’t bode so well. But the dank, damp cavern beckoned, and I forked over the moderate-but-not-usurious entry fee to have a look.

Having done precious little travel in my youth, on my grand world tour I found myself more often than not treading the road more traveled. But rather than playing the jaded backpacker, I sought to learn, wherever possible, if the touristic is indeed a waste of time and coin, or if it continues to offer transcendence. Yes, I found disappointment – aggressive touting at the Great Pyramid and the rice terraces of Bali; obnoxious Spring Breaker-style youth on Koh Phangan; overpriced meals and crowds in Venice. But I also found amazing stuff – I thought the Mona Lisa was marvellous; Tokyo’s electronics heavenly (for a techno-geek like me); the Full Moon party a delight.

I’m happy to say Buda’s Labyrinth fit in the latter category. The schoolkids were on their way out, and, as I entered the warren of passageways, found I had the kilometer-long maze almost to myself.

Formed by natural hot springs that bubble up under the city, these tunnels have been occupied by humans since prehistory – a fact driven home by replicas of the Lascaux cave paintings etched into the walls. Haunting medieval-style chants wafted over speakers in the caverns lit only by dim, dim lights. I was transfixed, almost in religious rapture at the dim memory of hunter-gatherers huddling in these grottoes eons ago.

As I passed through the tunnels dedicated to their occupation in historic times, I came upon a pagan-style altar straight out of Tolkien; a “wine fountain” replete with vines and stinking of fermented grapes (signage warns the visitor not to drink the liquid, though I wonder if that’s just to keep tipplers at bay); and a mammoth, partly-submerged head also straight out of Fantasyland’s central casting. Oh sure, Disney and his Imagineers conjure up stuff like this in their sleep… but nothing in the Americas possesses these caverns’ aura of authenticity.

And then, as quickly as the feeling had come, it vanished: the last bit of the attraction, labeled “the End of History,” claimed that ancient fossils had been found – dating back tens of millions of years, it was said – of suspiciously modern-looking shoeprints and computer keypads. High-tech Flintstones co-existing with dinosaurs? Fun for the kiddies, I’m sure, but for me the effect was cloying. So too the last bit, a cavern of “personal discovery” – a pitch-dark mini-maze that could have been fun but for some annoying youths cackling and howling like ghouls and witches.

A quick stop at a touristy (yet reasonably-priced) café nearby, then on to the city’s main attraction: the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Buda Castle.

Although I’d been in the city more than a day, and on this side of the Atlantic for the better part of a week, this felt like the first bona fide “Eurosightseeing” I’d done so far. Unlike its counterparts in Vienna or Prague, however, this one saw combat and destruction as recently as 1944: in addition to the bridges across the Danube, the retreating wehrmacht damaged it significantly. Happily, it’s been fully restored and is now once again a hodgepodge of styles and structures from many different eras: grand 17^th Century monumentality contrasting with medieval stone walls – think The Name of the Rose meets Dangerous Liaisons. The city’s History Museum, one of several in this sprawling complex, really rams home this place’s uber-long history even in a continent overflowing with the old: from the skull of a cave bear tens of thousands of years old to scenes of Second World War combat.

Riding a tram along the river, I alighted at the foot of Gellért Hill, the higher of Buda’s peaks immediately facing Pest. Leafy and treescaped, with a soaring victory monument at the top and stairs beckoning for a climb, I resisted the urge as my strength was starting to give out. Hoping for something of the more therapeutic variety, I stopped in at the Gellért Baths – the city’s trove of hot springs has made it a spa town for generations, and the century-plus-old Gellért is reputed to be the granddaddy of them all. Alas, fate was not on my side: although I’d arrived in plenty of time before closing, the spa was booked for a private party. Such is the way of travel, as I’d learned in my seven-month odyssey of occasional missed connections and misadventures (though for the most part my trip moved smoother than a Swiss watch).

As I strolled across the fin de siecle cantilever-style Independence Bridge after a bout of dinner in the Gellért district – unlike touristy Castle Hill, this felt like a more bona fide lived-in district of Buda – I mused some more on this place: unlike spotless Scandinavia or orderly Germany (and its satellites Austria and the Netherlands), Budapest is still in transition. In a way, this echoed my physical state while visiting this town, but more deeply, it echoes the soul of the traveler, the wanderer, in any circumstance. And so too our lives overall, which, if you think about it, are always works in progress. Hopefully, as has been Budapest’s fate in recent years, we manage to build more than we destroy.

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