Szimpla Kert is the original ruin bar — built in a derelict apartment complex in 2001. But the scene has evolved. I take you through three generations of ruin bars in one evening, from the grandparent to the most interesting new venue opening this year.

The Budapest Jewish Quarter has a food culture that is simultaneously one of the oldest and most overlooked in Central Europe — lángos, chimney cake done properly, Hungarian kürtős, and a deli counter at the Great Synagogue that has been feeding the neighbourhood since 1931.

The Hungarian National Gallery is inside the Royal Palace and covers 900 years of Hungarian art — much of which is explicitly political. I take you through the collection as a history lesson: wars, revolutions, occupations, and the art that survived all of them.

Tourists never go to Óbuda — which means they miss a Roman amphitheatre bigger than the Colosseum, a perfectly preserved Baroque town square, and the fact that Budapest is actually three cities (Buda, Óbuda, and Pest) that were only merged in 1873.