When I found out what this week’s PhotoHunt theme would be I knew immediately what photo I would post.
You can’t get much more colorful than this precise lineup of painted wooden nesting dolls from one of the upper level stalls in the Central Market Hall in Budapest.

Central Market Hall, opened in 1896, is a spectacular building designed by Hungarian architect Samu Pecz. It has the architectural feel of that time period when there was a love affair with exposed steel. It reminds you of the Eiffel Tower or the Santa Justa Elevator in Lisbon. That shouldn’t surprise, since Pecz and Eiffel were contemporaries and probably studied each other’s work. Plus the architect of the Santa Justa was a protege of Eiffel’s.

It is a huge, airy, and beautiful place. Though we were there in the mid-afternoon and most of the shoppers had come and gone, every food stall was still well stocked and spotlessly clean.

The 100 plus food stalls are on the ground floor level, were selling everything edible you can imagine. Sausage stalls, meats, fish, spices, veggies & fruit. And, of course, there were dried peppers everywhere.

The upper level, a sort of gallery overlooking the ground floor, had less than half the number of stalls because it didn’t extend into the center. They were mostly mostly traditional needlework, crafts, and tourist trinkets. This is where I got the shot of the nesting dolls. There were also several large restaurants on the upper level.

If you plan to visit Budapest, do not fail to save part of a day for Central Market Hall. The only thing I would do differently would be to arrive early in the morning to experience the hustle and bustle of the local shoppers. As it was, we were pretty much all tourists.