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Shopping in Budapest

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Budapest Shopping

You'll find plenty of expensive boutiques, folk-art and souvenir shops, foreign-language bookstores, and classical-record shops on or around touristy Váci utca, Budapest's famous, upscale, pedestrian-only promenade.

While a stroll along Váci utca is integral to a Budapest visit, browsing among some of the smaller, less touristy, more typically Hungarian shops in Pest—on the Kis körút (Small Ring Road) and Nagy körút (Great Ring Road)—may prove more interesting and less pricey.

Falk Miksa utca, in the fifth district, running south from Szent István körút, is one of the city's best antiques districts, lined on both sides with atmospheric little shops and galleries.

Hungary is famous for its age-old Herend porcelain, which is hand-painted in the village of Herend near Lake Balaton. Hungarian and Czech crystal is considerably less expensive here than in the United States.

Handmade articles, such as embroidered tablecloths and painted plates, are sold all over the city by Transylvanian women wearing traditional scarves and colorful skirts. You can usually find them standing at Moszkva tér, Jászai Mari tér, outside the Kossuth tér metro, around Váci utca, and in the larger metro stations.

Recordings of Hungarian folk music, or of pieces played by Hungarian artists, are available on compact discs, though cassettes and records are cheaper and are sold throughout the city.

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