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The starting point for exploring the Belvaros is Vorosmarty ter , the leafy centre of the district where crowds eddy around the portraitists, cafe tables and craft stalls that set up here over summer, Christmas and the wine festival. While children play in the fountains, teenagers lounge around the statue of Mihaly Vorosmarty (1800-50), a poet and translator whose hymn to Magyar identity, Szozat (Appeal), is publicly declaimed at moments of national crisis. Its opening line - "Be faithful to your land forever, Oh Hungarians" - is carved on the pedestal. Made of Carrara marble, it has to be wrapped in plastic sheeting each winter to prevent it from cracking. On the north side of the square is the Gerbeaud patisserie , Budapest's most famous confectioners. Founded in 1858 by Henrik Kugler, it was bought in 1884 by the Swiss confectioner Emile Gerbeaud, who invented the konyakos meggy (cognac-cherry bonbon) and sold top-class cakes at reasonable prices, making Gerbeaud a popular rendezvous for the middle classes. His portrait hangs in one of the rooms whose gilded ceilings and china recall the belle epoque . Beside Gerbeaud 's terrace is the entrance to the Underground Railway ( Foldalatti Vasut ), whose vaguely Art Nouveau cast-iron fixtures and elegant tilework stamp it as decades older than the other metro lines. Indeed, it was the first on the European continent and the second in the world (after London's Metropolitan line) when it was inaugurated in 1896. Visit the Underground Railway Museum at Deak ter to learn more about its history. At the lower end of the square, the Bank Palace was built (1913-15) in the heyday of Hungarian self-confidence by Ignac Alpar, and now houses the Budapest Stock Exchange , which was reborn in 1990, and allows visitors to observe its trading floor (Mon-Fri 10.30am-1.30pm; free).
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