Budapest startled me.  The fine beauty I associated with Western Europe interlaced with the darkness of far and recent past so perfectly that I was sure I was in a storybook.  Here the opulent Parliament building sits just in front of walls still suffering from Soviet bullet wounds.  The Jewish Quarter hosts one of the world’s largest – and most beautiful – synagogues in between lots that have been abandoned since most of the Jews there were deported in the last months of World War II. From the Danube River you gaze at a fairytale castle just next to the statue made to commemorate that the people wanted no more war.  Budapest quickly became one of my favorite places.

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