"This book tries to combine three types of guides with the advantages of all three: the Baedeker type, the critical guidebook and the alternative guidebook. It tries to serve you as an “invisible host”. There is a Hungarian saying for things that seem impossible: ‘an iron ring made out of wood’. Even if this book cannot overcome the language difficulties, it is designed to put the visitor at ease when making his own plans to discover the city. After all, it is easier to get help with the language from friends, business partners, interpreters or hotel receptionists, than to get ideas for spending one’s time.“It’s essentially a loving and learned essay on the city slyly disguised as a guidebook. What he really does is to capture the soul of the city and its denizens, past and present. His evocative observations and opinions, laced with wit and candor could only have come from one clever guy who’s truly lived the life in Budapest. You’ll read every page of this book as though it were a no