How early is “early”?

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Estremoz, Saturday 30 March

The rough guide advised us to go to the Saturday market “early”

8am so we went out; yes even before breakfast and walked the half a kilometre to the Rossi (market square); only to find that many stalls were still setting up. So early was not 8am, not like it would be for a fish market. All was not wasted though: we bought some cakes for breakfast and saw that it was fine to move the Tardis to the main square. There we enjoyed breakfast while watching the market set up properly and the Rossi car park fill up haphazardly.

10am we joined the market a second time, bought some sheep’s cheese and honey.

11am after returning to the Tardis we set out once more, past the busy market and up to the old castle and up the restored castle tower, now part of a posh hotel. Marvellous views, see the photos further down.

2pm returned to the market, which was still busy, though with signs of packing up. Karen bought me some sausage and tomatoes (clearly out of season, unlike the asparagus which boasted its own market stalls.

3pm set off to Evora stopping to view the marble quarry as we left Estremeoz

5pm We did not fancy the large barren Rossi outside the town walls, (nowhere to empty the ****)

5:30 Went a bit further out of town to the only campsite, and checked in (we eventually stayed for 3 nights)

Noticed that the campsite clock was 4:30, Portugal, unlike Spain was still on English time. So our early morning trip to the market had been at 7am.

So the answer to the question “an early market” is simply a Saturday morning market. But it does help to have you clocks on the right time and trust in the traditional town clock striking twice at 2pm, not to mention the satnav correctly showing local time.

Photos...