Budapest’s current heat wave makes daily life a sweltering challenge – but let’s take a look at how people survived hot weather in the city over the decades since the early 1900s. We browsed through the archive photos of Fortepan.hu to see how summers looked for our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, and discovered that they did a lot of the same things to beat the heat: cooling off in parks, the Buda Hills, or next to the Danube with some ice cream or a cold beer, and having some fun. After all, the heat is easier to take with a pinch of humor.
No matter how much we love Budapest, the scorching summer conditions put our patience to the test. When strolling on the Danube Promenade in the evening, still enduring about 28°C without any sign of a cooling breeze from the river, our mind wanders and we contemplate how our ancestors survived the warmer months in the concrete jungle. In the following collection of archive photos from Fortepan, we can see citizens beating the heat by hiding under parasols at Kálvin Square, chilling in holiday homes with the Buda Castle in the background, buying ice cream at Római Part, water-skiing on the Danube, or having a picnic at Normafa.
