Sunday Tordera Market.
Tordera is an industrial town in the middle of nowhere with very little going for it, but on Sundays everything changes, it becomes home to the biggest street market in Catalonia, the whole town is taken over by street traders and stall holders, and almost completely blocked with stalls, they overflow and take over a local park and riverside car park, people come from as far as Barcelona and Gerona, Catalans as well as tourists. The goods on sale include clothing,footwear, toys,furniture, carpets and floor coverings, kitchen utensils, fruit and veg, meats and fish, livestock, poultry, antiques, junk and just about anything else that you can think of.
Well we hadn`t been for a couple of years and on a whim after breackfast we decided to go there, got the train and arrived at the station, it is about half a mile away from the town, one of the most desolate stations ever, no buffet, no buses, no taxis, sod all, apart from a dogging bay, of which we didn`t see any (See photos), well we set off up the hill to the road into town, a dodgy treck with cars and coaches whizzing along it and no foot path, until the pedestrian bridge over the Rui (river) Tordera usually a wide expance of sand and silt and scrub, but no water, it mostly runs underground, but Saturday night there had been thunder and lightening up in the hills, which we had seen from our hotel room, and blow me down, there was water actually running along the river bed, so there must have been rain in them thar hills also, this is only the second time we have seen this phenomenon in about six or seven years, the last time was in April or May, when the snows in the pyranees was starting to melt.
We went into the park area of the market first, as most people were heading for the town, and it appeared to be sllghtly less crowded, this was mostly selling fruit and veg, flowers and plants, dairy products and fish, sausages and hams, whole legs of cured hams selling for around €25/40, They are wll over €50 in the supermarkets and even more in charcuteries, the fruit was someting to behold, apples, oranges of all sizes, pears and peaches all for sale at about 90cents per kilo, tomatoes the size of the buggers that I used to grow in the 60`s before the supermarkets insisted that they all be round and the same size, peppers so big, about 3 or 4 to the kilo, salads and green, beens of all sizes and mushrooms of every size colour and description, some fresh and others dried, again everything less than €1 per kilo, oh and onions, I never knew there were so many different sorts, I always believed that there were 3, spring, white and red ! that was an eye opener, then the stall changed to more clothing and hardware, there were lots of bargains to be had, and some to be had by ! Caveat emptor seems to be the rule. we stop at a mobile kiosk for some refreshments and people watching before moving on to the town, by now most people were making there way to the park, having seen all they wanted nto of the town, others were already heading back to their cars, coaches or the train.
we wandered around the town looking at even more and more stall, most selling clothing and shoes, but some furniture, hardware electrical appliances and jewelery, the place was heaving, and we were by this time taking little or no interest in most of the stalls so we made or way down to the river and strolled along the bank away from the town, it was really pleasant an quite a change from the hustle and bustle of the town, we found a local playground/park area an just sat and enjoyed watching the local kids do their thing, We then made our way back along the river to the carpark with the livestock stalls, most had been sold by now and the stallholders gone, piglets and lambs and other live animals ,all that was left were the poultry and gamebirds and pets, mainly birds and reptiles, all sorts of exotic birds, parrots, budgies and of course song birds, that the Catalans love to own, but many of them are captured wild birds like finches and thrushes and should really be flying free. then it was back to the railway station walking through the forest this time and back to Malgrat for dinner, another enjoyable unplanned day.