El Jueves Street Market

Go down to Calle Feria on a Thursday morning and you could be in for a big surprise, as a long section of the street and some side streets are taken over by the stalls of the El Jueves (Spanish for Thursday) market. Officially it’s an antiques market, but though you can find antiques here, the range of things on sale here is much wider and more eclectic. Ceramics, paintings and furniture jostle for attention with second hand books and toys, watches and accessories, CDs and recycled fixtures and fittings. Looking for a pepper mill to match your salt cellar? A lava lamp? A console for your old video-games? You just might find them here. If not, never mind, half the fun is in the browsing, or sitting in one of the local bars with a coffee and toast watching the bustle outside. And you never know when you’re going to stumble on that unmissable bargain or the perfect souvenir.

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El Jueves must be one of the oldest still-existing markets in Europe, dating back to the 13th century, just after the Christian reconquest of the city, and there are rumoured to be one or two items that have shown up every Thursday since then.