Spread over three floors, Budapest’s Great Market Hall is home to stalls selling fresh fruit, vegetables, paprika, salami and more. In the basement, the focus is on meat and fish; stalls on the ground floor primarily sell groceries, spices, wines and meat; while upstairs, there are Hungarian crafts and food stalls selling traditional Hungarian dishes. Opened in 1897, the Great Market Hall is the oldest in the city and is notable both for its size and its beautiful architecture. Must buys from Budapest are porcelain; the Hungarian traditional of hand crafted porcelain dates back hundreds of years along with Ajka Crystal, Painted Eggs, Traditional Hungarian Shirts and dolls, Tokaji wine.

If you like porcelain and dinnerware, the two main Hungarian manufacturers are Herend and Zsolnay, and you can find both pretty much everywhere, as well as lots of folk pottery with colorful flowers. In Castle District and on Gellért Hill you will definitely find vendors who sell these products.

The markets (either the Belvárosi Piac in Hold Street or the Central Market on Fővám tér, or the Market at Fehérvári út (tram 4 termini) are much better places to shop for local souvenirs and goods. For food stuff I recommend the Great Market Hall at the Pest end of Liberty Bridge (Szabadság híd). It’s not only the best and cheapest place to buy your souvenirs, but it’s the oldest market in the city.