"This year “Budapest Christmas” is being held for the ninth time, with events getting under way on the 29th November, 2007. The main attraction will be the traditional Christmas Market on Vörösmarty Square in the heart of Pest.This well established event – one of the largest of its type in Europe – has become an indispensable part of the build-up to the festive season. It is the capital’s largest public event outside the main tourist season, and is enduringly popular with locals and visitors alike. Indeed, many visitors make the trip to Budapest specifically to come to the Market.
PROGRAM
The Market is located in one of Budapest’s most beautiful squares, and each year its organizers aim to stage a high quality event that is also a fitting way to prepare for Christmas. Thus the goods on sale include tasteful hand-made gifts and folk-inspired traditional arts and crafts: here there is no room for the garish or the mass-produced. It is thanks to this careful attention to the quality of the wares, along with the broadening over the years of the scope of the other attractions and entertainment on offer, that has ensured the event has gained the outstanding international reputation it has.
There will be a wide range of folk-inspired arts and crafts on sale. These beautiful hand-produced items, made according to handed-down techniques and exclusively from natural materials, make ideal Christmas decorations or gifts. Altogether visitors will be able to choose from the wares of around a hundred craftsmen and women, the quality of all of whose work is subject to rigorous control.
There will be 150 great stage shows , including puppet theatre, folk music and folk dancing. Visitors of all ages will be given a free hand in the heated marquee to make their own seasonal decorations. During the time the fair lasts, a Nativity scene made by the folk wood carver will be observable, inside it the statues showing the Sacred Family, and at the same time, for this year we also plan the exhibition of Betlehem cribs ade by students of primary school of arts.
On the occasion of Zoltán Kodály's 125th birth anniversary , and within the framework of this remembrance year, this series of Christmas events would like to show respect towards the work of this composer by means of showing his choir masterpieces.
As part of this year's series of Christmas programmes in Budapest, we also plan to host the real Santa Claus from Finnland , who will be waiting with great interest for the children visiting the square, and personally listen to their wishes.
2007 11.30. Fri: 17.00-18.30
2007. 12. 02. Sun: 16.00-17.30
2007. 12.03. Mon: 15.30-16.30
2007. 12.04. Tue: 17.00-18.00
2007. 12. 06. Thu: 18.30-20.00
2007. 12.09. Sun: 10.30-12.30
Within the framework of this series of programmes, the pianist Szilvia Kárászy and her guests will again perform the traditional bell concert at the Hungarian Academy of Science. The curiosity of the concert will be, at the end of it, the "Golden Bell" pricegiving, where handicapped but musically talented children and adults will receive honours. This year's patron of the event will be Dr. Katalin Szili.
An inseparable part of the Budapest Christmas' series of programmes is the Advent Calendar . On the windows of the Gerbaud House facade, one of the most beautiful buildings of the square, is where the calendar is represented, in which 24 contemporary artists exhibit their reproductions, and every day a new window opens, accom panied by a fanfare.
Tourist information will be available from the Tourism Office of Budapest’s own stall in the Christmas Market. There will be a wide range of colourful and informative brochures available, as well as information about other special events to be held over Advent, Christmas and New Year. Our helpful English-speaking staff will be on hand to answer all visitors’ questions.
The festive atmosphere will be further enhanced by the distinctive aromas of honey cake, mulled wine, cinnamon and pine needles wafting alluringly around the square. Visitors will be able to enjoy traditional pastry horns, doughnuts, strudels, chops and mulled wine all prepared, cooked, grilled, or baked in traditional adobe ovens, on site."
Source: budapestinfo.hu
27.11.2007