The Ecseri Flea Market – the biggest and main second-hand market in Budapest – is an exiting and bustling place, offering a cavalcade of old and new items. You find here the newest fashion, the oldest tables and many strange and funny , sometimes bizarre and fanciful objects as well. The atmosphere of this huge muck is loose, bohemian and familiar, all the objects has its own story, and being offered often by the owner, you can be familiar with it too. If you are in love with flea markets, are good at haggling prices, and love to look at old stuffs, it is inevitable for you. There are a lot of things can be found here, either you are a bargain hunter, or either you are really crazy for antique plunders. Tons of great arts, as – sometimes very percious – furniture, painting, porcelain, overlay of somebody’s grandma, point-lices, vases, old rockinghorses, gramophons, yellow draned teddybears and crybaby doll, war memorabilia, old postcards and newspapers, hugh bulks of books, ware statues, cuckoo-clock, military – original! – clothes….and many-many treasures wait for their new owner. Vendors here are a unique „specimen” – seem not to care about business at all. Sometimes they turn up from another stand, annoying as they had to interrupt their chessplay with the neighbour. Turning on the business at the first moment is not always wise, first we have to listen to the whole story of the selected item, and the seller’s, or his mom’s, or any other familymember’s health problems as well, not talking about the actual political situation, or if the favorite team of the seller won or loss at the weekend. First the prices are boldly high, but to bargain is a must one, and we really can pick sometimes a real treasure – depending on, what treasure means for us!
When we are looking for some extravagant clothes, bags or a pair of shoe on the cheap, find a secondhand from the bests! „Rummage” is not simply shopping, we are forced to go beacuse of the crisis, but a real joy. Nothing compares to the moment, when rooting deeply into the bulk of the clothes, at the end a real, unique, style piece is swinging between our sleeves, which surely does not come around the next corner. Second best moment is, when we start to plan, what with, and where to wore the pulled-out piece, and third best is, when at the cassa we realize, how reasonable was the price we paid for the „takings”.
When your purse is somewhat thicker, or you are a collector of artpieces, best to visit the tract of the Falk Miksa street, „Budapest’s Portobello Road”. You can find here high quality antiques, paintings, books, furniture, porcelain, jewellery, silver, goblein, old tableclothes, or objects of smaller value as a gift, a souvenir, or simply just for fun! Those shops are often serve as auction houses as well, and yearly once the night of the galleries is held, when all the shops are open in 24 hours, and beside the joy of shopping and gleaning, you find other kind of entertainments too.
