Loule Markets and shopping

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Dear reader. Yet again another day without photos. We updated to Flash 11 and now the photo upload function doesn't work. Hope Travel Blog gets it fixed soon. CORRECTION. We switched over to Chrome and now it all works. You'll see photos from today and yesterday to catch you up.

Anyways, today was market day in Loule. There were two markets today. One is the weekly market outside and the other is an indoor market that is held daily. The outdoor one featured fresh produce, cheeses, nuts, sausages, etc as well as the most popular vendor who made fresh fihols (those hot donuts dipped in cinnamon - the word translated to "dreams"). So yummy. Inside there were lots of fresh fish vendors as well as some permanent shops selling pottery and lace goods (traditional Portuguese). We bought an Easter Cake which is a traditional Portuguese cake. It will be for later. We bought some small items from the pottery shop and did window shopping only at the fish vendors. There were some fish heads there bigger than Nigel's head!! Fresh eels again and a hundred different kinds of fish (most we never heard of). There were lots of shellfish too (oysters, clams, mussels, huge crabs, etc). The fish vendors would hack off tuna steaks with huge knives for customers. It was all pretty cool.

Then we wandered around the base of the Loule Castle which happened to be very close to the market. We also found an area of pedestrian only streets lined with shops so we were able to pick up some souvenirs (like a Ronaldo t-shirt for Russell). All in all a successful outing!

We stopped for a very late picnic lunch in Albufiera and then came home for some swimming since we didn't swim before we left this morning. Oh, how the poor children do suffer......

Forgot to mention, we saw something today for the first time in Portugal......a CLOUD!!! There were a few clouds today and the temperature was a little cooler (still warm though) but perfect for walking and shopping.

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Photos

Blue mackeral
Not sure if I spelled that right. This was Russell's first fish at the Robizio (all you can eat fish)

Gillet Head
Russell's second fish. I may have spelled it wrong. At first I thought the waiter was calling it guilt head. If my face looked like this fish's, I'd feel pretty bad about it too.

Stigg and the kidls
Great dog that Stigg. Loyal. Clean. No barking. Very excited to see you.

The market at Loule
Full of fish vendors, lace vendors, beer vendors, etc..

Dreams
These fihol are to die for!!!!!!

Alley market
Lots of market activity in this covered alley. They've draped sheets over the street to create shade.

Street band
This guy had a really pretty decent alto sax sound.

Giant fish head
This thing was probably 4.5 feet long.

Cool old bike
Anyone know what this one is? Harley? Indian?

Comments

[Catharine]

Better
Dear Blogger, Did you get my comments from yesterday? Well, I feel slightly redeemed today seeing all those wonderful photos. I particularly like the one of Lori eating the "Dreams" - nice biting skills! I would have liked to see Nigels' head beside the fish to back up the written description. Keep trying. How much longer to we have? Also, I have heard no mention of running? Signed, needy Newcastlite.

[NigelR]

Glad you are finally happy
We are here until Aug 6 so lots of blogging left. We are running almost every day but Nigel says it is not "blog-worthy"......the running is hot and not too interesting, just along our road and hoping no stray dogs catch us...

[Elke]

Fihol
You'll have to learn how to make these, Lori. They look yummy!

[NigelR]

Ha ha
Sure. Very funny. Actually Nigel did google the recipe and things he could do it!