A girl has to go shopping

No reasonable tour of any city can be complete without a few shopping pit stops. At least that is my view on the matter. So, bright and early Saturday morning brought us to the central market of Budapest, a three-story building known as Vasarcsarnok.

OK, so the ground floor was really only for “atmosphere”. I’m was not going to be buying fruit or vegetables, bread, flowers, salami, or paprika. Yet, the upper floors afforded the shopper opportunities for purchasing some rather nice folk embroideries. Yes, another tablecloth and a few Christmas ornaments were purchased (I didn’t really need them, but they were just so pretty I couldn’t help myself), as well as some birthday and Christmas gifts....

Vasarcsarnok - Central Market Hall, Budapest.



Hungarian linens in Vasarcsarnok - Central Market Hall, Budapest.





Flowers in the Vasarcsarnok - Central Market Hall, Budapest.



Later in the afternoon, I ventured off for some 1:1 shopping time along the Vaci Utca, Budapest’s pedestrian-only promenade. I had hoped to pick up some more of the lovely crystal similar to what I had bought in '97. Yet, in every store I inquired, the cost to ship the stems (12 or so) was twice the cost of the crystal itself. What was even more doubly hard to believe is that the cost to ship to an EU country, like Germany, was more expensive than shipping the items to the US. I was not prepared to haul 12+ stems of crystal through Hungarian and German airports (guess I didn't want it badly enough, huh?). Needless to say, I may just have to revisit Budapest or even Prague to pick those up in the future, but at least I’ll be prepared to be my own packmule at that time.