To Market We Go

We read in our book that there was this Great Market Hall with food stalls on the ground floor and traditional crafts on the first floor and a fish market in the basement.  I had originally suggested that we plan to go the last day so we could collect any souvenirs that we hadn't managed to get the previous days.  


Gill didn't say anything but she had this really worried look on her face.  So after breakfast at the New York Cafe, we did an orienteering circle around Pest and ended up at the Market mid-afternoon.  We walked by their parliament and had this sort of notion that we could take a relaxing stroll along the Danube.  


We did walk along the Danube, but it is right next to the busiest street, and it is frequented by Budapest's homeless - or at least the people that seem to need a nap in their clothes on the sidewalk in the afternoon.

Exterior of the great market hall

The exterior of the market was so beautiful with really intricate tile for the roof that we would also see the next day on several of the buildings in Buda.  The inside was pretty darn beautiful as well with all of the windows and iron work.

Looking down at the food stalls from the beer garden

We toured around the top and received a bit of high pressure salesmanship, but it was tolerable and by no means as bad as it was in Morocco.  We stopped to have a beer and consider our purchases before we went back and Gill bought a wooden chess set and I bought some ridiculous wooden hanging things: one is definitely a chef and another is perhaps a horse or maybe a hippo or perhaps a dinosaur.


We toured around the ground floor and checked out all of the  produce and meats for sale.  Everyone there was clearly collecting supplies for dinner and you could tell by the conversations going on that many people go to the same stalls over and over.  

Hungarian Men Chewing the Fat
Factoid: the average Hungarian eats 1 pound of lard a week

Apparently, the stalls themselves are handed down from generation to generation - you can't just rent one willy nilly.

MEAT!

We purchased our afternoon snack at a pastry stall.  I got the world largest cream puff and Gill got a little custard square.  I insisted on eating them immediately and continued a long whine until I was given mine.  I was COVERED in cream within seconds and received some pretty horrified stares from passersby.  I suspect eating on the produce floor is perhaps bad form.

VEGETABLES!

We then did a bit of comparison shopping for paprika, which comes in many forms in Budapest.  There is sweet and hot powder - a paste in a squeezy tube that is used for goulash again in sweet and hot form and then there is a jar with a sauce.  The male sauce is hot and the female sauce is sweet - imagine!  We purchased from the stall that gave us the least problems.

Fantastic!

We walked back to our hotel with all of our purchases, which seemed like a bit longer walk than it was on the way over.  I did get very close to begging for a taxi, but then we saw our little man, and I knew we only had a block to go.


We had just enough time to clean up and have a drink before the ballet.