One of the features I loved most about every city and town we visited during our trip to Spain and Portugal was the mercados. A few, like Madrid’s Mercado de San Miguel, were modernized and updated and drew throngs of tourists more than the everyday citizen shopper. What I most enjoyed, though, were the large neighborhood markets, often housed in cavernous old buildings with nary a decorative element in sight. Their appeal lay in the enormous variety of foodstuffs and beverages on display, with occasional stalls offering household goods or perhaps some artisan’s work.

On our second day in Santiago de Compostela, after a casual morning spent poking into churches and shops in the old town area around the cathedral, we headed uphill to the city’s main mercado, the Mercado de Abastos. It consists of long stone-block galleries lined on either side with vendors offering wonders for all the senses. Outside, along the edges of the small plazas between the buildings, are more informal, temporary stalls where vegetable and flower sellers offer their wares.

The butchers’ shops drew our attention with their long strings of sausages, bone-in jamón ibérico (hoof included) hanging from hooks and every edible part of the pig you could imagine (and some you probably hadn’t!).

We spent quite a bit of time at one of the cheesemongers as she generously handed out samples of a number of cheeses. With her limited English and our virtually nonexistent Spanish, through a bit of pantomime and animal sounds we nevertheless managed to understand we were tasting sheep, cow or goat cheeses; where they came from; and how long they’d been aged. It was a delightful experience, and we came away with several options for our picnic lunch later.   

We also checked out the poultry stall and imagined what a great stock one could make from a whole fresh bird.

    We also drooled over the amazing assortment of shellfish      and seafood chilling on ice.      Oh, to have such delights close at hand at home!

We spent more than an hour meandering up and down the corridors, gathering up fruit, some enormous sweet red peppers, cheese, bread and sausages for lunch. Our next stop: the Parque de la Alameda, a large, lovely park offering mighty, old trees shading long pathways, sculptures, flower gardens and fountains. Its origins go back to the mid-16th century, when land was donated to the city for the purposes of a garden to be enjoyed by all . . .  and still today residents see it as an outdoor living space, well-loved and -used.

We made our way down the wide Lions Walk,     which presented many postcard-worthy views of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela framed by the trees.     We found a bench nearby the grand old “Lovers’ Eucalyptus,”   a monumentally enormous tree (note the people near its trunk in the picture), and settled down to enjoy our lunch, the views and a little people-watching. After several very busy days, we enjoyed this slower-paced afternoon and the cool green spaces around us.

— Patty Vanikiotis, associate editor/copy editor