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At the top of Budapest’s Gellért Hill stands a slender sculpture of a young girl hoisting a palm leaf over her head. The so-called Liberty Monument, commemorating the end of Fascism, was erected here in 1947 by a hopeful people who could not have predicted that their liberators would soon turn into occupiers, and that the freedom they had fought for would not arrive for another four decades. Today, the statue, visible from afar, is both a reminder of the city’s long history of occupation—everyone from Genghis Khan and Suleiman the Magnificent to the Hapsburgs and Lenin put a claim on the Hungarian capital—and a poignant symbol of independent, modern Budapest.

As with many cities in fast-changing Central Europe, Budapest finds itself in the position of crafting a new identity by finding a balance between the past and the future. History is woven throughout its very landscape—arguably one of the most glorious in Europe. The Danube divides the former sovereign townships of hilly Buda and flat Pest, which are engaged in an age-old dialogue across the rushing waters. The Art Nouveau palaces of Pest’s waterfront soar and slope and rise delicately—architecture as frozen music, indeed—while Buda’s grand fortifications and gleaming Baroque monuments answer with ancient tales of kings and wars. But Budapest, a member of the European Union since 2004, is also a city in motion (see Why Go Now), and the mood is one of optimism and vibrancy.