Budapest was a perfect place to test my theory that it’s best to not look at photographs of a city before visiting. I had no idea what to expect when I arrived and was incredibly delighted by its beautiful river, grand bridges, and iconic, dominant Parliament building.
One of the most interesting places I’ve traveled over the past few years was Memento Park in Budapest, an open-air museum filled with the detritus of Soviet rule over Eastern Bloc countries. There’s nothing the Soviets seemed to enjoy more than depositing gigantic statues of heroic communist workers, soldiers, and statesmen...