Zeidler Miklós: Sporting Spaces - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2000)
the freedom to establish new clubs since the country’s political system was changed has had positive effects on the building of new facilities, the scarcity of funding has slowed down the process. Significant construction is now being carried out only in the areas of such trendy sports which require relatively modest investments (fitness, tennis, squash), with only reconstruction work being financed in sports which would need costly investment if new facilities were built (athletics, ball games, swimming, diving and water-polo). The Büda side The elegant, but somewhat sleepy Buda and Óbuda, the latter with a proletarian and petty-bourgeois population, took longer to join the sporting life of the capital than their dynamic, cosmopolitan twin-city of Pest. Fewer sports clubs were formed here-and even fewer survived -and far fewer sports facilities were built here than on the other side of the Danube. The hilly surface of the area in itself made it harder to find convenient venues capable of admitting crowds ten-thousand strong. On the other hand, these geographical conditions were well suited for the purposes of tourism and winter sports. The hilly region of Buda The Buda hills, stretching from Hűvösvölgy to Csillebérc, had been a choice area for the excursion-makers of the twin-cities ever since the Reform Age of the early and middle 19th century, wnile Gellért Hill was an obligatory destination of Sunday trips and picnics. Real hikers were more interested in the environs of Tündér-szikla (Fairy Cliff), Zugliget, the two parts of Hárs-hegy (Linden Hill), Normafa and Sváb Hill, Mak- kosmária and the rest of the hilly and leafy areas where those of a really adventurous spirit also ventured into the caves. The now untamed, now friendly region of hills was gradually connected by public transport to the capital. The first stage of this process was the construction of the cogwheel railway in 1874 (the line, serviced by steam engines at the beginning, was electrified in 1929) and in 1948 the Pioneer (today Child10
