Budapest Christmas markets

Arranged in a ring around the square in front of St Stephen's Basilica, with an ice rink for children in the middle and the church facade closing the view.

That facade is the reason to come. Through the season it carries a full-height animated light projection, shown at intervals through the evening — the single most photographed thing in Budapest in December. It runs every half hour or so once it is properly dark, and it is free.

The food here is better than at Vörösmarty and the crowd is marginally thinner. If you are only doing one market, do this one.

The city's original Christmas market, at the head of the Váci utca pedestrian street in District V: a large square of wooden chalets, a stage with a daily programme, and craft stalls that are genuinely juried rather than a free-for-all.

It is also the most expensive and the most crowded of the two, and after about six in the evening in late December it can be difficult to move.

Go between four and five. It is lit, cold and still navigable. By seven it is a queue. Gerbeaud is on the same square and has been since 1858, which makes it the obvious warming stop.

A scattering of smaller markets appears through the season — on Erzsébet tér, in the Jewish Quarter where the mood is younger and the food less traditional, and in neighbourhood squares across the outer districts.

None of them is a destination on its own. All of them are pleasanter than the two big ones on a Saturday evening, and they are where you will actually hear Hungarian being spoken.

The Great Market Hall is not a Christmas market but is worth an hour in December, when the ground floor fills with paprika, sausage and preserves being bought seriously by people cooking for the holidays.