1/8
Danube Arena swimming complex
Housed within a wavy silver façade reflecting shimmers from the nearby river, the Danube Arena was completed in February to serve as the primary venue for summertime’s 2017 FINA World Championships held in Budapest. The gigantic pool complex has capacity for 15,000 spectators surrounding an Olympic-size swimming pool, a complete diving area with a ten-meter platform, and several other pools equipped for all kinds of water sports. The world’s best aqua-athletes have finished using the Danube Arena (for now), so the general public is welcome to dive into the modern pool facilities; check out the official website for opening hours and more info.
2/8
Additional ferryboat docks on the Danube
Two useful new docks were added to routes of Budapest’s public ferryboats this year, providing an extremely pleasant alternative for locals to visit Hungary’s premier concert hall and a beautiful riverfront park. In springtime, the BKK public-transport company opened a brand-new dock next to Budapest’s waterfront Palace of Arts, creating an ultra-romantic way for couples to go see a show at this world-class cultural center in southern Pest. A few months later, the ferries also added a stop at Buda’s sprawling Kopaszi Dam parkland directly on the Danube, a perfect destination for an outdoorsy day trip.
3/8
New pavilions in City Park
While some controversy surrounds the ongoing Liget Project to renovate Budapest’s historic City Park, most people are pleased about the new pavilions that replaced the shabby Soviet-era vendors’ booths near Széchenyi Bath at the beginning of summer 2017. The style of these pavilions fits perfectly with Budapest’s architectural atmosphere, and with good reason – they were built using 157-year-old blueprints by notable Hungarian architect Frigyes Feszl, who also designed the recently renovated Pesti Vigadó on the Danube Promenade. These timelessly graceful parkland buildings now house a gift shop and a charming café with plenty of shaded tables.
4/8
The renovated Gellért Hill slide park
A half-century since the city first built a beloved park of long slides on the southern slope of Gellért Hill, the forested recreation space was modernized this year to be more fun (and safer) than ever before. Kids of all ages can enjoy the assortment of meters-long slides all made possible with the boost of hillside gravity, and the slide area’s new rubberized coating minimizes the risk of boo-boos inherent to youngsters gliding at relatively high speed. This parkland features other cool playtime facilities like a tall climbing tower, a tiny tunnel, and a rope bridge, while parents particularly appreciate the refurbished public toilets.
5/8
Margaret Island Musical Fountain light effects
One of Budapest’s finest free attractions is the huge Musical Fountain on Margaret Island, featuring streams arcing and spraying in sync with varied tunes blasted from surrounding speakers. In recent years the fountain was modernized with high-tech moving water jets to increase the animated liquid’s aesthetic appeal, but during this past summer the spurting attraction was truly launched into the 21st century when incredible light-show effects were added to enhance nighttime viewing of this popular parkland spectacle, as projections of Hungarian icons – like the Rubik’s Cube and soccer legend Ferenc Puskás – come alive in the dancing waters.
6/8
Downtown pop-up park by Hello Wood
Just steps away from the city’s central transport hub of Deák Square, Városháza Park is in the middle of everything – yet it’s usually strangely empty, aside from when it occasionally serves as a site for weekend festivals or seasonal markets. However, the super-creative craftspeople of Hungary’s Hello Wood organization decided to change that during summertime 2017 by constructing a variety of one-of-a-kind oversized benches here, all designed with eye-catching shapes while being comfortable to relax on (depending on how much one wanted to recline). Although this popular pop-up park is gone now, Hello Wood would happily build a new one next year.
7/8
Electronic gates at the Deák Square metro station
The times, they are a-changin’ – at least for passengers of Budapest’s metro system. For many decades now, the city’s public-transport authorities handle ticket control by hiring an army of inspectors to semi-randomly check if passengers have passes at varied underground entrances, but efforts are under way to replace this erratic enforcement system with electronic gates installed at metro stations citywide. In September, the first set of these gates was unveiled at the aforementioned downtown traffic hub of Deák Square… although for now the gates mainly serve as an inactive prototype display, as ticket inspectors still play cat-and-mouse here.
Megjelent első bookazine-unk, ne maradj le róla!
Már 15 éve lélegzünk összhangban a fővárossal. Jubileumi kiadványunkban mindent megtalálsz, ami magazinunk és eddigi munkánk esszenciája. Gasztronómia, kultúra, városi legendák és Budapest arcai, interjúk, történetek és a legjobb helyek – úgy, ahogyan mi látjuk a fővárost.
Rendeld meg itt vagy keresd a nagyobb könyvesboltokban!
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