A little Detour

Walking to the Market

Today I walked to the Market to find something interesting for dinner. Toronto has a wonderful Market, the St. Lawrence Market that is within walking distance. It is amazing how similar good markets are all over the world. The best markets I have found are all very much the same design. St Lawrence Market is much like Markets in Narbonne France, Budapest Hungary or Barcelona Spain. I may do a post about markets one day, but today I want to tell you about a little detour I took on the way to the Market. 

The condo is on Mutual Street which runs down towards the waterfront and the Market, but it is not a major route, so I have never actually explored it. It was actually difficult to use this route, because not being a major street, it does not have crosswalks, so I had to wait for traffic breaks to cross the streets. Today was a beautiful warm day and I was enjoying the walk, taking my time and looking at a part of the city I had not explored. Part way down, I noticed a walkway leading to a courtyard which was part of the Toronto Metropolitan University, and there were some interesting wooden structures in the courtyard. 

I walked in to discover a whole collection of what I would say were covered shelters with seats. They were all different and were just made of ordinary timber on a standard base. In common, they all had a roof, and they all had at least one seating area. I assume they were some sort of student competition or class assignment, and they all had signs identifying team numbers. I did ask one student who came out of one of the university buildings, but she did not know anything about them. 

What do you think? Any ideas?

This one does not look finished . . . . .

Life In Budapest

The View out the Window

The River Cruise finished, we are settling into our two week stay in Budapest. The cruise was a great way to arrive in the city, because we had almost two days on the boat in Budapest, including a bus and walking tour of the city, and some casual exploring of our own. As a result we had a pretty good idea of what was here, and were not coming in cold.

Doing the Wash after the Cruise

The apartment was a 20-minute walk from the boat, even dragging our suitcases over cobbled streets, and the ‘agent’ for the apartment warmly greeted us. The apartment is absolutely everything we expected. It is a good size for the two of us, and even when guests from Egypt arrived for a couple of days we were not crowded, and the view out the window is amazing, especially at night. Fortunately the original windows have been replaced with actual thermal windows and in the old stone building, block out the noise of the city when we want – the Budapest Police seem to really love their sirens.   

Our Home in Budapest

The Central Market is only a ten minute walk in the other direction, and we can get anything we need there, lots of fresh vegetables and meat stalls. We have already started to overdose on dishes made with Hungarian Paprika, Chicken Paprika, Hungarian Goulash & Paprika Squash soup.

Hungarian Paprika Soup

As well we have discovered that the apartment is in the central core of the city and there are so many attractions nearby, that we will never be able to see everything even in two weeks. We have already gotten lost twice just meandering the neighborhood streets. Fortunately it is always easy to find the river so we have always been able to find our way home.

The Market

The Market Building

 Back home we have the Halifax Farmer's Market over in Halifax, but it is not a 'real' market by the definition the rest of the world uses. . . . . more 'craft' market with a few food vendors. Regis says I can find a market where ever I travel, and have managed to find them in most locations I have visited.

Now Olhao has a real market, and it operates almost every day. There are grocery stores here, but they are mostly small corner operations where you can get canned goods, wine, or speciality items. The market contains the majority of the food you need. You can but meat or vegetables at the corner 'supermarket' in a emergency, but really, why go there when the market is available six days a week.

Farm Fresh Food

Sobeys, Superstore, Loblaws, and the other huge supermarkets have not taken over Olhao yet. If you need bread or rolls you go to the bakery, and will probably pick up some delicious pastries with your 'fresh from the oven' rolls or bread. For most everything else you go to the market.

Selling her Produce

Olhao's market is in two beautiful large brick buildings down on the waterfront. One contains fresh fruit, vegetables, spices, grains and other things. The other building is the fish market, and you can also find fresh meat, cheeses, but Olhao is the main fishing town in southern Portugal, so the building is mostly seafood. Around the outside of the building are the Portuguese 'Snack Bars' – mostly I think these sell beer for the husbands to sit and drink with their friends while wives are inside the market stocking up for the evening meal.

Saturday Market Day

The fruit & vegetable buildings contains stall after stall of people selling lovely fresh produce. Tomatoes that actually taste like tomatoes grown in a garden, piles of fava beans waiting to be shelled, red green & yellow peppers, crisp lettuce, onions, leeks and garlic. You can buy strawberries, raspberries, bananas, lemons and oranges. A couple of euros will buy you a 4 kilo bag of slightly smaller oranges to make into juice (And we wondered why you couldn't get good juice in the store . . . . .) In between you will find stalls selling a wonderful selection of honey, delicious almonds and other specialities. Other vendors sell spices, vast buckets of olives, cages full of live snails, or bins of dried beans and rices. At one end of this building there are also butchers selling chickens, pork, and rabbit, as well as a variety of delicious portuguese sausages and cured meats. There are also a couple of stalls selling a large selection of cheese, and as in Spain, they make a large percentage of their cheese from goat or sheep milk, so I am very happy.

Walk outside the middle door of the vegetable building and you know you are headed to the fish market. Inside are tables of melting ice loaded with fresh fish and seafood. Don't bother going on Monday however, because the fleet is tied up Sunday, so there won't be any seafood until the boats return later that day. You know everything is fresh. There are eels, octopus, squid, and so many kinds of fish I cannot identify. Of course the names are all in Portuguese, so we rely on what is recommended. On our first visit we wanted sardines, to fry up for supper (no sardines do not come in a can here), but were told it is a bit early for good sardines, we should wait for june to get the best fresh sardines. We elected to take our chances with the available ones, and Pete cooked them up with some local port. Wow, I can't imagine how the 'good' ones in June would be.

Selling on the Seafront

On Saturday this wonderful market actually expands with stalls spilling out onto the sidewalks and the waterfront malecon, and it seems that the entire town comes to the market to not only shop but more important to socialize and catch up with friends and relatives or find out the local gossip. Off to one side a gypsy market sells clothes, crafts, and everything else you didn't know you needed.

We do need to go to the grocery store for coffee and dried pasta, but our grocery bag will not be very heavy.