Faurest, Kristin: Ten spaces - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2010)

Szent István park

a different way to better effect. Having a guard — that is, not a park worker or attendant, but someone who is explicitly there to forcibly prevent misbehaviour — is a disturbing sign in a park. It indicates a lack of trust of the park's visitors, and an assumption of misbehaviour. One feels a natural, instinctive sort of apprehension walking past a guard booth — not a sense of protection, but a sense of suspicion.

Szent István park enjoys some of the most brilliant background scenery of any public space in the city — a panoramic view of the Danube, Margaret Island and the Margaret bridge, and the Buda hills. And of course, like so many other places in the city, it is so close to the Danube and yet so far - hopelessly cut off by multiple lanes of traffic. The park is separated from the river by the Újpesti rakpart, whose previous names echo the long-gone industrial and political past. At the beginning of the 19th century and up

■ No words can express the enchantment ojj the season's hirst snowball

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