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To escape Budapest's humid summers, many people flock north of the city to the Danube Bend ( Dunakanyar ), one of the grandest stretches of the river, outdone only by the Kazan Gorge in Romania. Entering the Carpathian Basin, the Danube widens dramatically, only to be forced by hills and mountains through a narrow, twisting valley, almost a U-turn - the "Bend" - before dividing for the length of Szentendre Sziget and flowing into Budapest. The historic towns and ruins of Szentendre, Esztergom and Visegrad on the west bank can be seen on a long day-trip from Budapest, but it would be a shame not to linger here and visit the quieter east side too, boasting the sedate town of Vac, the gardens of Vacratot and the charms of Nagymaros and Zebegeny, as well as the neighbouring Pilis and Borzsony highlands, with opportunities for hiking or horse-riding .

The Danube is the second longest river in Europe after the Volga, flowing 2857km from the Black Forest to the Black Sea. Between the confluence of the Bereg and Briach streams at Donaueschingen and its shifting delta on the Black Sea, the Danube is fed by over three hundred tributaries from a catchment area of 816,000 square kilometres, and has nine nations along its banks. Known as the Donau in Germany and Austria, it becomes the Dunaj in Slovakia and then the Duna in Hungary before taking a course through Croatia, Serbia and Bulgaria as the Dunav, Romania as the Dunarea and the Ukraine as the Dunay, forming the frontier for much of the way. Used by armies and tribes since antiquity, this "dustless highway" deeply impressed the German poet Holderlin who saw it as an allegory for the mythical voyage of the ancient German forefathers to the Black Sea, and for Hercules' journey from Greece to the land of the Hyperboreans. Attila Joszef described it as "cloudy, wise and great", its waters from many lands as intermingled as the peoples of the Carpathian Basin.

While the Danube's strategic value ended after World War II, economic and environmental concerns came to the fore in the 1980s, when the governments of Hungary, Austria and Czechoslovakia began to realize a plan to dam the river between Gabcikovo and Nagymaros. The public opposition that compelled Hungary to abandon the

project was a milestone along the road to democracy, mobilizing society in a way no overtly political cause ever could have. In the early 1990s, Slovakia pressed ahead and diverted the Danube on its own while Hungary was busy demolishing the work it had begun at Nagymaros. The controversy surrounding the project - with both countries pressing their claim that the other must pay for breaking international law - has now subsided, and the Hungarian government has insisted that there will be no dam.

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