Last week I was at the international e-participation and local democracy symposium, held at the Hotel Intercontinental in Budapest. After an early start to make it to Heathrow for the 7.15am Malev flight direct to Budapest Ferihegy, I had two hours to sightsee before the conference began, and another five hours after the conference ended on Friday. I hope you’ll agree that I made the most of this time…

I’d never been as far east as Budapest before, and I suppose that I hadn’t expected the heat to be as intense as it was. While I was there, the mercury was stuck at 36-40 degrees, and at night it barely cooled. So all my sightseeing was done in a fug, with a water bottle clutched at my side, darting from one patch of shade to another. With my trusty Rough Guide to Budapest (20% off from Borders), I was determined to march around as much of the city as I could, despite the heat, but finally gave in and paid just over 7000 HUF for one of those open-top bus tours. The commentary was in English, and in two hours the bus took me further than I could have walked and pointed out the bits that I wanted to explore further on foot, so I guess it was worth it.

Coming from a tourist city myself, I suppose the thing that surprised me about Budapest was how scruffy it was. I was taken aback by the amount of graffiti everywhere, even in the smartest streets and at the most photogenic tourist traps, looping and curling across the front of smart shops doing steady trade.

Here are some photos of the highlights of Budapest:

This is the view from the top of the Gellert Hill to the Danube. Don’t want to make you jealous, but my hotel was on the Pest side (the right of this photo), on the banks for the river, and is just immediately out of shot.

Budapest is a city of statues and memorials, with a sense of its history on every street corner. Here are memorials commemorating two of the more recent episodes - the liberation of the city by the Red Army in 1945, and the reformist Communist prime minister, Imre Nagy, who was killed following the failed 1956 revolution. Without making a comment on the politics, I loved the Nagy memorial. A real man, ordinary, dressed for a Hungarian winter, not a heroic pose. While I was there, ordinary-looking Hungarian women tied flowers to the bridge in between the constant stream of toruists running up for their photo to be taken next to him. I took this photo in a rare moment of quiet.

The Hungarian parliament building was next on my list. Here it is, in its full glory. Remind you of anywhere?

My route march also took me through the former Jewish ghetto, where over 50,000 women, elderly and children were crammed into accommodation for 15,000 during world war two. I wandered past the rebuilt central synagogue and briefly stopped to pay my respects at the Holocaust memorial, a willow tree with the names of those victims recorded inscribed on the leaves.

Finally, I took the chance to do some people-watching on the main shopping street, Vaci Utca, and in the Great Market Hall.

Curiously enough, many of the souvenir stalls on the first floor were selling Communist memorabilia - KGB badges and the like - which I thought in pretty terrible taste. This display of Russian dolls, though, was I thought, a pretty equal opportunity offender. Yes, for just 3000 HUF, you too can own seven dolls of Osama Bin Laden in varying sizes, complete with handy internal stacking mechanism! Or if Osama’s not your cup of tea, how about Lenin, Stalin or Saddam Hussain? And if you prefer your world leaders to be of the elected or not-quite-elected variety, choose from a wide selection of US, British and Italian leaders or would-be-leaders (yes, that is John Kerry at the back there!)

So, Budapest, my friends. No photos of the Castle or Varhegy, as didn’t get the chance to spend much time there, sadly. I fully intend to revisit and do all the things the guidebook tells me I should - visiting the Szechenyi baths and the House of Terror, the statue park where old Communist statues go to die and taking in that river cruise of the Danube. Someday.