Columbo Statue, Budapest.

We were in Budapest recently and I read an article online which told me “10 things you need to do in Budapest” and one of those things was to visit the statue of Columbo. Columbo? I was sure that it must have been a mistake. Columbus maybe? No, there it was Columbo and his dog. This was something we just had to see.

So we took a walk one warm evening to hunt down the statue of Peter Falk’s most famous character.

One thing kept puzzling me though: How did a statue of a Los Angeles Homicide Detective come to be just down the road from Budapest’s Parliament building?

The statue stands on the corner of Falk Miksa Street. The street itself is named after Miksa Falk (7 October 1828 – 10 September 1908) who was a politician, journalist and editor in chief of the German language newspaper Pester Lloyd.

Peter Falk, the actor who played Columbo, was born in the Bronx New York in 1927.

Peter Falk’s family did have ancestors from Hungary but he was not related to Miksa Falk, or at least this has never been proven.

The statues of Columbo and his Dog, named Dog, by the sculptor Géza Dezső Fekete, were erected in 2014 as part of a state-sponsored urban renewal project.

It really is a remarkable statue and Dog has obviously been stroked quite a bit over the years due to his shiny head. You can also see on Columbo’s Right shoulder where people lean on him to get a photo.

I don’t remember Columbo having a dog but here they both are. Dog made his first appearance in the movie “Étude in Black” in 1972 and became a recurring character thereafter.

Budapest has some amazing statues to see, and plenty of them, each one has a story to tell.

Just one more thing, if you would like to visit the statue of Columbo and Dog you can find them both at Falk Miksa u., 1055 Hungary. There’s always a crowd around him so you may have to wait sometimes to get a photo.