Detailed review by Praskipark
Praskipark
Warsaw, Poland95%
To find your way to the market in Funchal, Madeira, or as we say in Portuguese, to the Mercado dos Lavradores you need to walk along the cobbled street caled Rua Dom Carlos. Here you will encounter cleaned up fishermen's houses which are now used as craft centres by sandal makers and lace makers. There is also a small chapel called Capela do Corpo Santo and it was a chapel built by local people who formed a guild to provide help for destitute sailors and fishermen.
Numerous bars and restaurants line Rua Dom Carlos I, and others have begun to spread into Rua de Santa Maria, Funcha's oldest street, which runs one block north. Many of the simple buildings lining both streets were slums until very recently, when their occupants were re-housed as part of a scheme to improve the area. Regrettably, Funchal's market, at the western end of the Zona Velha, has also been cleaned up and sanitised. The Mercado dos Lavradores (or farmers' market) is now housed in a sleek liner-like Art Deco building, designed in the 1930's by Edmund Tavares. Until recently, the streets surrounding the market hall were filled with cobblers, knife grinders, lottery ticket sellers, hawkers of household goods and peasant farmers selling home-produced bread, honey and herbs in scenes probably little changed since the island's colonisation. The informal set-up no longer exists, and the main market is rapidly becoming very touristy which is a great shame as other times when I have been to Madeira I have always enjoyed the quaint charm of the old fashioned style market. I suppose although Madeira still seems like it is stuck in the 1930's to me the people of the island have moved on and probably prefer to shop in supermarkets and hypermarkets.
Even so, the fish market in the basement, with its huge sides of tuna and its razor-toothed scabbard fish, still presents a purgatorial scene of blood and macho knife-wielding in contrast to the more genteel fruit and flower market.
The hustle and bustle of the market does still spill out onto the pavements in front of the market, from where you can look across one of the city's canalised rivers to the Anadia shopping complex.
I think the Mercado is definitely worth a visit just to see the stall holders in action and there is some beautiful tile work (azulejos) outside the market walls.
Mercado dos Lavradores8
