El Rastro - Sunday Market

One of the things we make a point of doing in our travels is to visit the local markets.  El Rastro is the biggest one here in Madrid, and it's only on Sunday, so today was our day to go.

So as not to repeat the oversleeping debacle of yesterday, the Easter Bunny was kind enough to come last night and hide a few eggs in our flat so that the kids would be motivated to awaken early to hunt for them. Unfortunately, the bunny had nothing for Sue, and since I was (apparently) snoring loudly last night, Sue had a harder time than usual getting up. Nevertheless, we got to El Rastro by 11:30 or so.

El Rastro was the most crowded, biggest market I have ever seen.  We visited just a fraction of it, and every booth had lots of people around it. I even found a booth selling juggling equipment - including poi - which made me very happy. Everyone but me bought a few trinkets.

Here's a quick video of what it was like:




One crazy store was a bird shop, with probably a thousand birds. The noise inside was deafening. See for yourself what it was like: