Prague, Vienna, and Budapest: a journey through the heart of Central Europe

Visiting these three cities is like taking a journey through the history, architecture, and culture of three cities that, for centuries, were the heart of the lost Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Each one retains its own soul, style, and legacy, offering travelers an experience that goes beyond the merely touristy: it's an immersion in the different layers of an imperial past that still throbs in its streets, squares, and palaces.

From the medieval magic of Prague to the classical elegance of Vienna , and the vibrant fusion of East and West that defines Budapest , this Central European triangle reveals a mosaic of cultures, traditions, and worldviews that have shaped Europe throughout the centuries. Three cities, three stories, a single thread uniting splendor and ruins, memory and modernity.

The journey begins in Prague, a city of fog and stone, of Gothic towers and cobbled alleyways, which welcomes visitors with the majestic silhouette of its castle : the largest fortress in the world, perched on a hill overlooking the Vltava River . From there, the slender St. Vitus Cathedral dominates the horizon with its soaring spires, rising above a city that has witnessed royal coronations and imperial burials.

Construction of the cathedral, which began in the 14th century, lasted for many centuries, interrupted by wars and conflicts. Inside, the stained-glass windows shine with intense colors, some designed in 1910 by the famous Czech painter and designer Alfons Mucha, a master of Art Nouveau, flooding the solemnity of its naves with light and modernist hues.

Descending towards the Vltava, the Gothic Charles Bridge—one of the city's symbols—offers the passerby the experience of suspended time , especially at dawn, when Prague is still asleep. Built by Emperor Charles IV in the mid-14th century to replace another bridge swept away by a flood, its 516-meter length and 16 stone arches made it a strategic gateway between East and West for centuries.

The Charles Bridge connects the Old Town with the Malá Strana district and rises gently toward the Castle, like a line linking medieval splendor with the present. At its feet, Old Town Square—with its famous astronomical clock—beats like the true heart of Prague, where life bustles among Gothic churches, Renaissance palaces, and Baroque facades that silhouette the city sky.

But Prague is also the city of Jaroslav Hašek and his unforgettable character, the good soldier Švejk, a naive and mocking anti-hero who navigates—without fully understanding, or pretending not to understand—the absurd military machinery of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire, doomed to collapse for no clear reason. In its pages, as in the streets of Prague, resonate irony, dark humor, and a Central European skepticism that mocks the delusions of grandeur of history and of passing empires.

There's something unsettling, almost disturbing, about Prague. As if the entire city were made of the same stuff as Kafka's suffocating dreams, who called it "a little mother with claws," both protective and suffocating.

Just over 300 kilometers from Prague, Vienna's skyline rises with a distinctly different spirit. The two cities are only a short distance apart, but the change is profound: from the somber magic of the Czech capital to the orderly and luminous elegance of the Austrian metropolis , designed to impress with its imperial grandeur.

Everything in Vienna exudes a desire for permanence: the Hofburg and Schönbrunn palaces recall the splendor of the Habsburgs; the Ringstrasse, the grand circular avenue, displays a succession of majestic buildings—the State Opera, the Parliament, City Hall, the Museum of Fine Arts—that seem to evoke the eternal ambition of the Habsburgs.

In the heart of the city stands the imposing St. Stephen's Cathedral, a superb example of late Central European Gothic, with its unmistakable glass mosaic roof and spire that pierces the Viennese sky.

But beneath this image of splendor beats another, darker pulse: that of dark cafes and nineteenth-century bookstores, the melancholy of an empire that never fully accepted its end.

This awareness of decline is felt in every corner: in Freud strolling down Berggasse; in Stefan Zweig sadly evoking the gilded Vienna of his childhood; in Klimt, Schiele, and Kokoschka, who shattered the forms as the 19th century crumbled. In the Café Central—that living museum of velvet and wood where Trotsky, Hitler, and Tito once read—that aroma of grandeur still lingers, of splendor that refuses to fade.

Budapest is just 240 kilometers from Vienna, a short train ride along the river that simultaneously unites and separates, a natural border between worlds and cultures. The city reveals a different spirit: here everything is more intense, less polished . The avenues open wide, the buildings are monumental, and the scars of history remain visible at every turn.

If Prague is the city of Kafka, and Vienna that of Musil and Freud, Budapest is that of Sándor Márai, whose sober and melancholic prose seems to emerge from these streets where Europe seems to be unraveling. The city, split in two—Buda and Pest—hills and plains—has a divided soul.

On the west bank, Buda features the castle, Matthias Church, and Fisherman's Bastion: white towers overlooking the Danube and looking toward Pest. Across the Danube, on the east bank, stands the enormous neo-Gothic Hungarian Parliament, reflected in the river's waters. Andrássy Avenue leads to Heroes' Square, where monuments to former Hungarian leaders attempt to establish an often-blurred identity.

The thermal baths—Gellért and Széchenyi—are an essential part of the Budapest experience. Immersing yourself in their hot waters, whether under centuries-old domes or outdoors, is like bathing in history itself: Roman, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian.

Budapest is also a mirror of contradictions. Central European but with Balkan roots, Western but with Turkish echoes, elegant and worn, splendid and wounded. “Communism fell like a poorly pitched tent,” wrote György Konrád, and it's true: in Pest, traces of that fragile structure still remain, mixed between delicate art nouveau facades and the blocks of Soviet brutalism.

The city remembers its history. Rome left Aquincum here, a city on the edge of the Empire. Then Byzantium, with its crosses and domes, whose imprint remains vague. Later, the Habsburgs attempted to impose Viennese geometry with palaces, avenues, and squares. And finally, the Soviet era, the gray postwar Budapest, the era of tanks crushing the 1956 uprising, the era of Soviet monuments that still stand the test of time.

Prague, Vienna, and Budapest represent different ways of being Europe . Prague, with its history of heresy and power; Vienna, the epicenter of modernity and imperial order; Budapest, witness to profound tensions and transformations. They are united by the history of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a complex political project that collapsed in 1918, leaving a legacy of cultural diversity and historical tensions.

From Kafka to Freud and Márai, these cities remind us that history is not a simple chain of events, but a conflicting web of ideas, achievements, and contradictions whose complexity defines the multiple identities of Europe.