Yesterday we went to Mercat Del Encants, a huge marketplace with many hundred (maybe thousand) of stands where absolutely everything was sold. From young men selling brand new furniture to old ladies selling used adult magazines. Lots and lots of plain junk, and often the seller had just poured everything out on the ground. It was very crowded and stressed, and we didn’t really find anything of interest.
After a few hours we took the metro and decided to jump of at Arc de Triomf, built for the 1888 world fair. Therewe first encountered musicians that we at a distance thought were protesters for something (lots of banging drums and whistles), but when coming closer we realized they were kids from a local school or something.
On the other side of the arc there was another marketplace. The contrast to Mercat Del Encants was however huge. Here everything was extremely calm, not at all crowded and the loudspeakers played soothing music. The market seemed to focus more on handcrafted items and there were also plenty of food (like an entire sausage stand) to be seen. We stopped for a while and had delicious falafel pita while sitting in the grass. About halfway through, the marketplace changed direction and started to focus on animal rights, new age, help organizations and such.
After stopping by for a while at our apartment, we did some more alley-walking in old town. Since it was Saturday, a lot more street performers was there, taking advantage of the extra crowd of people coming in over the weekend. We also crashed another wedding, saw some ancient roman pillars, had some food and later some dessert and did some final shopping.
Today we are going home, and I better finish packing now. We will wait in Frankfurt for about 3½ hours. Good thing I have plenty of movies on my Eee. 🙂
