You meet at the Budapest Eye as the Ferris wheel turns slow arcs against the river-glint. The guide checks names, hands out earbuds, and the city begins to speak in a series of well-timed reveals: a sweep of Parliament’s neo-Gothic spires across the Danube, the fluted dome of St. Stephen’s, the steep, stepped façade of Castle Hill rising over cobblestone streets. In four hours you move at a human pace—walking, short drives in an air-conditioned vehicle, and pauses long enough to make pictures and note the small things—coffee-cup rings on terrace tables, priests lighting candles in a basilica, trams clattering like punctuation through Pest.