Budapest Christmas Market

**aeshnidae** · 12-27-2019, 12:32 PM

My completed map for the December 2018 challenge, “remember December.” I didn't manage to get this into the Finished Maps forum at the end of last year, and I nearly missed my chance a whole year later!

The challenge was to map what December means to you. I'm a first generation American and 100% Hungarian ethnically, so I've been visiting Budapest my entire life (starting at age 2) to see family. Because we're often there in the late fall/early winter, we try to time our visit with the Christmas markets (even though we're Jewish). There are a number of them in Budapest but my favorite is the one in Vörösmarty tér (square). It's a huge square so the market feels more like a small, bustling village. It's best at night, when it's chilly but there's warmth from the cooking coals and fires (and now patio heaters), and tons of delicious food smells mingle in the air, and you can buy kürtoskalács, "chimney cakes" - dough wrapped around thick wooden rollers and cooked over hot coals, then rolled in cinnamon sugar, or chocolate and walnuts. My god, they are delicious. And if you get too cold you can pop into Café Gerbeaud for their amazing hot chocolate or coffee drinks and pastries. Plus all the trees have holiday lights and there's music and two stages for folk dancing and such, and you can buy all manner of Hungarian folk art.

This was hand-drawn in Photoshop on a Wacom Intuos Pro. The font is Harrington. WIP thread is here: https://www.cartographersguild.com/s...ad.php?t=43015

Xmas Market v11 (sm).jpg