It's colorful, noisy, and full of both wares and people. The many sights, sounds, and smells can be a little overwhelming.

The local merchants sell their wares from brightly colored stalls and expect you to bicker over the price. You can buy anything from a handmade chess set (personally engraved on the spot), hand-tatted lace, and embroidered linens to a sampler of Hungarian paprika and sausages.

It's also a great place to stop for a quick, inexpensive bite to eat. At one end, you'll find several Hungarian "fast-food" stalls, which sell various sausages, pastries, sandwiches, and goulash. Seating is in the open food-court style. Be forewarned: this area of the building is rather warm, and there is no air-conditioning.

The Market is a joy to visit, not only to admire the sheer quality and range of food that is available, but also to see a shining example of what a bustling market hall should be. It certainly puts modern supermarkets to shame (visit the Match Szupermarket in the basement to make an instant comparison).

This grand, ornate market hall has been here for over 100 years (when it was first built it was the most advanced market in the world) and was painstakingly restored to its current glory in 1994, after many years of neglect. The range of produce on display is superb, with counter after counter of fresh local vegetables, sausages and other cooked meats, shelves of fiery (and not so fiery) Paprika in decorative tins or presentation packages.

In the basement, you’ll find stalls selling a wide range of pickles and spices (just follow your nose) as well as huge tanks of live freshwater fish. Indeed, when buying your fish, you’ll get a sturdy water-filled polythene bag in which to carry your live purchase home (you can then let the fish spend its last few hours swimming happily in your bath before cooking), ensuring it remains really fresh.

On the gallery level, there are a number of "fast food" stalls offering traditional Hungarian goodies such as Langos (fried dough), Fozelek (vegetable based stews) and Hurka (blood pudding). While these perhaps sounding rather unappetising, they are in fact delicious and very cheap. Langos in particular are fantastic accompanied drizzled in soured cream & cheese or simply rubbed with garlic.

The upstairs galleries are also home to numerous concessions selling various Hungarian handicrafts, including beautiful embroidery, though many items are pretty expensive. Having, you may wish to test your haggling skills to see if you can negotiate a more favourable price.

When visiting a new city, it's always interesting to see its churches and castles, its palaces and palatial estates, but, to a foodie, these popular sites are just the beginning. While we enjoy knowing about a country’s past, it's today that we are interested in and the ingredients a nation uses to feed itself.

So, when visiting, the romantic city of Budapest, Hungary, it was important for me to make a pilgrimage to the Central Market Hall (Nagycsarnok) in Budapest, the largest of a network of food markets. Hungarians have been shopping in this massive hall since 1897.

Come here (especially Saturday morning) to the Pest side of Szabadsag (Liberty) Bridge, and you will be among the locals as you watch them fill their wicker baskets with farm- fresh eggs, eggplant, chicken, and potatoes. Massive displays of home-style breads tumble down toward the edge of the display table, urging you to pick them up and take them with you. An overwhelming array of Hungarian cheeses, dairy products, fresh produce and meats such as salami, and sausage make you wish that you could fill your basket to the brim, take your cornucopia home and start cooking. You're on vacation, though, so you pass by those tempting displays and settle for some tins of paprika and perhaps a packet or two of pasta that you can safely transport back home.

But, wait, if your group makes reservations with Bridge Tours (bridge-tours@bridge-tours.hu website: www.bridge-tours.hu,you can actively participate in the Central Market action in a variety of ways. Their "Taste the good things in Budapest’s pantry," lets you see the products the stallholders offer, note the shopping habits of Hungarian cooks, and, best of all, taste the Hungarian dishes that are cooked at home. Other programs for cooks include wine tastings and a hands-on cooking course. Best of all is the morning feast, a buffet breakfast program where you "have breakfast like a king." I was able to feast on such Hungarian favorites as peasant omelet, lecso (a savory blend of tomatoes, onions and peppers) with sausage, a selection of mixed cold meats, such as spare ribs, ham and sausage, mixed breads and an abundance of pastries from jam buns to cocoa scrolls.

For me, a visit to Budapest isn’t complete without a visit to the Central Hall Market, and a visit to the Central Market Hall isn’t complete without a visit to their Wooden Spoon Restaurant. Here, as you look out over the vast array of bountiful ingredients for sale below, you can savor the taste of Hungarian specialties and make some delicious memories.