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trip! Budapest Sights and Shopping
The major sights in Budapest will be described in your guidebook or you can hire a tour to take you around the city - here are a few notes that the guidebooks are too out of date to provide.
Opera
Opera House tours are available at 3pm and 4pm. The opera house is
one of the most beautiful in the world and has wonderful acoustics - in part
because of it's small size. It is definitely worth a visit, either
with a tour or even better to see the Opera or Ballet.
Hungarian National Museum
The Hungarian National Museum provides a fascinating overview of
Hungarian History. I especially loved the period rooms from each era,
but I found that the English descriptions assumed a little more recollection
of world war two era history than I was able to muster up - reviewing the
history section of my guidebook before seeing the museum would have helped
me appreciate it more.
Herend - click here for more details
1014 Budapest V., Jozsef nador ter 11., Tel: 317-2622
Even if you're not in the market for new china or figurines, you'll want
to browse in this beautiful shop off of Vaci Utca to see the hand painted
porcelain Hungary is famous for. Staff is pleasant and shipping can be
arranged for larger orders. Click here to learn
more about Herend China and Figurines
Hungarian National Gallery
If you're at all interested in art history, this fascinating museum is
well worth a browse. I'm not sure quite what I expected, but I was
blown away by the quality of the work and the whole visit had me thinking
about what might have happened on the international art scene for these
talented artists had world war two gone differently for Hungary.
Nagy Csarnok Market at the end of the Erzsebet Bridge is a must. It's always fascinating to see the local market and learn about what ingredients people buy to stock their kitchens. After eating in a few restaurants, you want to buy a few spices and other treats to take home - Sweet Paprika, whole dried Paprika, wine, and canned Goose Liver are among the things you might want to pick up. There's also a large selection of gift items and especially linens on the top floor. Prices are lower than in the supermarkets.
Vaci Utca
Largely tourist stuff - but worth a visit if you want to buy linens or
other items.
Goa
H-1075 Budapest, Királyu U. 19-21 1/352-8442
Really shouldn't be on the list because the wares have nothing to do with
budapest, but they're so pretty you might want to stop in anyway.
Questions and Answers
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