Traditional markets often reflect the life style, culture and habits of people. In this case it is a long tradition in Tomar for people to head to the local market on Fridays. It’s a weekly event that has been taking place for a few centuries, even though some people now prefer supermarkets and shopping centres. Even if you don’t want to buy anything it’s still interesting to feel the atmospheres of the Tomar market.
Vendors and customers at the traditional Friday market in Tomar
People walking around at the weekly market of Tomar. The mature couple on the left seem to be tourists visiting the market
People in another area of the market in Tomar, which sells a wide range of tapestry
This is another area of the traditional weekly Market of Tomar, which is positioned on the other side of the market main grounds, across Avenida Norton de Matos. Vendors at this area of ‘Mercado de Tomar’ as they say in Portuguese, sell lots of stuff like kitchenware, baskets, furniture, etc. When I lived in Portugal this section of the market was located somewhere else, and this street didn’t even exist. It was built later and vendors obviously saw it as a better place to sell their merchandise.
Lots and lots of baskets of all types and sizes for sale at the traditional Market of Tomar in Portugal
At this area of the weekly Market of Tomar, they sell lots of different types of merchandise, including furniture
Kitchenware is the specialty of this vendor at the weekly traditional Market of the City of Tomar
Everybody loves beautiful flowers but they are not just pretty. As you already know, they also help all types of plants to reproduce through pollen. I mean they send pollen and receive pollen from other plants. Anyway the final result are pretty flowers like these ones on display at the traditional weekly market of Tomar. There are some stalls in the market that only sells flowers, which are often used to be laid on the tombstones of departed family in the town cemetery.
This is an stall in the traditional weekly market of the City of Tomar, that only sells flowers. They are beautiful to decorate your living room
You can buy almost everything at the weekly market of Tomar which happens every Friday. In this case flowers are the product, often used to be laid on the tombstones of deceased family and friends
Believe it or not but you can order flowers online from the US to be delivered in Portugal the next day. May be it's convenient but there is nothing like buying them in a traditional market like this one in Tomar
As you may already know from my previous posts on this theme, the traditional Friday weekly market of Tomar sells all sorts of merchandise. This time I am focusing on the clothes market, which is mainly situated alongside Nabão River. There are lots of stands filled with new clothes and accessories of all kinds for all tastes. As far as I know, no second hand clothes are sold here and the quality seems to be quite good.
Photo shot at the weekly market of Tomar in an area where they only sell all sort of clothes and accessories. My wife bought a couple of gorgeous and good quality jackets in this clothes market
Thought you walk on unpaved walkways, the traders of this weekly clothes market in the City of Tomar, keep their stands tidy and the clothes have quality. Remember this is a traditional market
Another view of this clothes market in Tomar, with stands alongside the banks of Nabão River. This is a traditional market which has been operating like this for a very long time, probably since the middle ages
Another set of photos shot at the weekly traditional market in the City of Tomar. These photos are from stalls that sell Portuguese sausages (chouriço and farinheira), cheese, bread and farturas. In the first photo you can see a red sausage called Chouriço which is typically Portuguese and Spanish, and it’s been made for centuries. In the Roman times you could already eat chouriços in the Iberian Peninsula. By the way, in Spanish it’s called Chorizo. It’s a sausage made of pork and smoked with dried red peppers (paprika). The second photo is of Portuguese bread and the third photo is of stall that sells farturas, which are dough piped in the shape of a coil, fried, then cut into about 20 centimetres lengths and rolled in sugar and cinnamon.
This is a stall at the weekly markets of Tomar, selling cheese and specially chouriços, which is a traditional Portuguese smoked red sausage. There are also other types of sausages, like farinheira
This is a stall at the markets of Tomar in Portugal, selling traditional Portuguese bread. Here I can see a type of bread called Papo Secos (Bread rolls) and Pão de Milho, which is bread made of corn flour
This stall sells farturas, which is a 20 centimetres length fried dough, rolled in sugar and cinnamon. It's quite delicious and very popular
There is a long tradition in Tomar. Fridays are market day, and for centuries the people of this town have headed to this traditional weekly market in droves, though nowadays, due to modern supermarkets, not as many people go there as in the past. I still remember going to this market when I was a kid in the 60’s, with my aunt Emilia, and you could hardly move, due to the large number of people there, buying and selling basically everything, specially vegetables, fruit, meat, etc. These photos show us the area where vendors sell fruits and vegetables.
The entrance to the market in Tomar, shot from Avenida Norton de Matos, near the so called New Bridge, which links the city from one parish to the other
People buying all kinds of fruit and vegetables in the Friday market of Tomar in Portugal. Some of the people in this photo are my wife, son and mother
Market vendor in the City of Tomar, selling a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. I was told that most of this produce was locally grown by small farmers
There is a traditional weekly market (Mercado de Tomar) every Friday in the City of Tomar in Portugal and you can buy basically everything there, from vegetables, fruit and meat to things like clothes, baskets, kitchen wares, etc. I happened to visit this market with my wife, my mother and my son and shot a few very interesting photos. When I was there, by chance I even served as a five minute translator between a couple of tourists with an accent from England and a gipsy clothes vendor. These three photos of Tomar Market were shot from the other side of Nabão River (Rio Nabão), but it wasn’t Friday so not many people were there that day. In the future I will publish more photos of the market with lots of people around, all the fresh produce and the many other things to buy.
Tomar Market in Portugal (Mercado de Tomar) from a distance. Photo shot from the other side of Nabão River
This is a Traditional Market in the City of Tomar in Portugal, held every Friday, but this was a different day of the week. So not many people around
Another perspective of Tomar Market seen from a passageway near Nabão River