Christmas Fair & Winter Festival at Vörösmarty Sqr.

Visit the Budapest Christmas Fair and Winter Festival on Vörösmarty Square if you want to immerse yourself in the captivating atmopshere of Budapest’s famous winter holiday market.

The event is also a great opportunity to buy something unique and original for your loved ones.

The lovely plaza in the heart of the city turns into a festive market place for nearly two months between November 15 and New Year’s Eve.

The official date of the Christmas fair is November 14 – December 31, 2025.

Note: You can pay only with bank card/credit card at the vendors!

Go on a cozy 1-hour winter boat trip on the Kisfaludy Paddle Steamer!

Enjoy the heated cabin, warm blankets, and festive atmosphere as we cruise along the river Danube. Hot drinks are served.

Audio guide in 20+ languages is included (need your own phone and earbuds).

Available at Christmas on December 25-26 and the New Year Holidays: December 31, January 01.

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The location is ideal; the Square is in the heart of the city at the end of Váci utca, right in front of the prestigious Gerbeaud Coffee House.

View on Google Maps!

Getting There:

• M1, M2, M3 metro lines Deák tér station (a short walk from there),
• M1 metro (yellow line) Vörösmarty tér station,
• tram 2 Vigadó tér stop (a couple of minutes walk form there),
• trams 47, 49 Deák tér stop

Cottage-style wooden stalls and two outdoor stages take over one of Budapest’s most attractive spots during the couple of weeks preceding the end-of-the-year holidays.

You can smell the scent of traditional honey cookies, mulled wine, cinnamon and fir from afar. The fragrant air simply lures you to the market.

Date:

• November 14 – December 31, 2025

Opening Hours:

• Monday – Thursday: 11.00 – 21.00
• Friday – Saturday: 11.00 – 22.00
• Sunday: 11.00 – 21.00
• 24. December: 10.00 – 14.00
• 25 – 26. December: 12.00 – 18.00
• 29 – 30 December: 11.00 – 21.00
• 31. December/NYE: 11.00 – 03.00

Besides the usual fair delicacies (kürtös kalács/Sekler cake, strudels, flódni –  a traditional Jewish cake layered cake with walnut, poppy seed and plum preserve filling, bread pizza baked in clay oven, roasted chestnut) you can taste traditional Hungarian Christmas dishes:

• Stuffed cabbage served in bun
• Roasted goose thigh,
• Roasted pork knuckle,
• Grilled sausages
• Beef stew and other meat dishes.

• Stuffed cabbage – a plate of this local dish costs 7 000 HUF
• Fishermen’s Soup (halászlé) and char-grilled pike perch
• Whole pig roasted on skewer over open fire
• Potato pancake/rösti (tócsni in Hungarian) – served with sour cream and cheese: 800 – 1200 HUF
• Pulled pork sandwich
• Pumpkin braised in duck fat sprinkled with hot pumpkin seed or the
• Foie gras/duck sausage and
• Sekler cake coated with dried raspeberry and cranberry pieces (at Vitéz Kürtös: 1 700 HUF)

Thematic gastro week await visitors in the Hütte Bistro in front of the Gerbeaud Cafe where you can get to know local cuisine and wines, taste the typical dishes of Hungary and the neighbouring nations.

Each week the menu wil be focusing a different theme presented by talented chefs and wine makers.

• 20 – 26. November – Wild and Game Dishes, Wines of Northern Hungary: venison, wild boar, rabbit served with medium or full bodied red wines.
• 27. November – 03. December – Stuffed Cabbage, Wines of Somló Region: white wines like tramini, juhfark hárslevelű (linden leaf)
• 04 – 10. December – Advent Fasting Season, Fish and Vegetable Dishes,
• 11 – 17. December – Typical Hannukah Holiday Foods: deep-fried foods: doughnut, lángos, scones, potato pancake (latkes)
• 17 – 24. December – Christmas Dishes: Fishermen’s soup, stuffed cabbage, bejgli, Gerbeaid cake, poppy seed pudding
• 25 – 31. December – New Year’s Pork Week

The official Christmas mug of the fair features 3 new designs each year:a combination of red and white colours this year.

You can buy the mug at every stall that sells mulled wine or hot tea. It costs 600 HUF. You can collect all three if you wish.

The Lighting of the Candles on the Advent Wreath accompanied with choral singing will take place  on Sundays in the Advent period at 16.00.

Kids visiting with their parents won’t be bored either.

Puppet theatre, music and dance performances, craft workshops await families with kids in the heated, wooden playhouse.

The children’s train is new activity that will sure keep the little ones entertained, while their parents sip a glass of hot tea or wine.

All programs are free.

Children’s Train (FREE to USE) Operating Hours

• Monday – Friday: 14.00 – 20.00
• Saturday – Sunday: 11.00 – 20.00

Dates & Time: until 03. December  Friday, Saturday, Sunday at 10.00- 13.00, 14.00 – 18.00

After 03. December the workshops welcome kids twice every day between:

• 10.00 – 13.00
• 14.00 – 18.00

They can learn the ins and outs of candle making, beading, basketry, felting, and baking gingerbread.

Each workshop will be focusing on a different art & craft project helping kids and their parents preapring for the year-end festivities.

Besides old favourites like

• Stuffed cabbage,
• Goulash
• Lángos – yeas-based dough deep-fried, served usually with sour cream and cheese on top
• Strudel,
• Grilled sausages and meat,
• Christmas pastries, cake,
• Kürtös kalács/Funnel cake (hollow, cylinder-shaped pastry from Transylvania in origin with different coatings: caramelized sugar, ground walnut, coconut or chocolate).

• Mulled wine: 2 dl: 1 800 HUF
• Soda drinks: 1 000 HUF/0,5 L
• Mineral water: 800 HUF/0,5 L
• Hot chocolate: 1 700 – 3 500HUF
• Hot tea (3 dl): 900 – 1 300 HUF, w. rum: 2 200 – 4 500 HUF
• Coffee: 1 100 – 1 250 HUF
• Lángos: with all imaginable toppings from sweet (Nutella, fruit jam) to savoury: (plain salted, sour cream, cheese, sausage bacon, vegetarian) Price varies between 2 000 – 4 900 HUF.
• Stuffed cabbage in bread: from 7 000 HUF/portion

Thie local street food, lángos a yeast-based round batter deep fried in oil is available at almost every corner of the fair.

You can even learn to make it at the Lángos/Hungarian Flat Bread Workshop & Store locate dat the Váci itca end of the fair.

It comes with all imaginable toppings from sweet (Nutella, fruit jam) to savoury:

Lángos Prices:

• Plain with salt and a dash of garlic oil : 2 000 HUF,
• Sour cream & Cheese: 3 200 HUF,
• With extra toppings: up to 4 900 HUF,

Sprinkle the loaf sugar with cane rum (around 0.5 litre). Light the alcoholic sugar then wait until all the alcohol content burns and the melted sugar drips in the bowl.

Then pour around 2 litres spicy mulled white wine, 1 liter tea, and the juice of two oranges and lemons into the bowl. Cheers!

If you ask to have your drink in the mug you have to buy it, it costs 600 HUF

Besides mulled wine and krampampuli, other alcoholic beverages are also available to warm you up: grog, craft cherry beer served warm, grog

You can sip spicy mulled wine or other hot drinks from special mugs different in design every year.

This year you can chose from two colors (red and white) and three designs.

The famous Gerbeaud Confectionery used to have an Advent Calendar in its windows.

The pages turned over day by day, each day a decorated window opens at 17.00.

As in previous years a small Bethlehem will come alive on the square with a crib and live animals.

Besides the 15-m high Christmas fir, the light of the Flame of Peace brought by scouts from the Church of Nativity in Betlehem greets visitors of the festive market.

Date: November 14 2025 – January 01 2026

The festive fair in front of the St. Stephen’s Basilica is the next most-visited Christmas market in Budapest, after the Vörösmarty Square venue.

• A slender 8 m high Christmas tree,
• Tasty nibbles, fish dishes, goulash, BBQ, pastries and cakes, fragrant winter drinks
• A free 200 sqrm ice-skating rink, and
• A wide range of gifts are the main attractions of this Xmas bazaar.

A tall Christmas tree dominates the holiday fair in Deák Ferenc utca (also known as Fashion Street)

There are also kürtös kalács, strudels, mangalica products (mangalica is a unique breed of pig indigenous to Hungary) and a variety of other souvenirs to choose from.

The street is packed with big name designer shops: Furla, Massimo Dutti, Boss, Nanushka, Mexx, Lacoste so you have lots of shopping options.

The street ends with a Starbucks cafe if you wish to have a hot cup of Gingerbread latte.