Hungary

Rating: ★★★★★ (4.9 / 5)

Hungary is a landlocked Central European country with a proud and distinctive culture, a turbulent history, and a capital city in Budapest that ranks among the most beautiful in the world. Straddling the Danube, Budapest combines the grand boulevards and coffee house culture of Pest with the hilltop castle and thermal springs of Buda, creating a city of extraordinary atmosphere and architectural drama. Hungary is also known for its thermal bath culture, its rich musical tradition from Liszt to Bartok, its fiery cuisine centred on paprika and goulash, and the great sweep of the Great Hungarian Plain, which gives the country a landscape quite unlike anywhere else in Europe.