Few places can make you understand a city but a street market or a fresh produce market. And in the case of Vilagarcía they have a long tradition.
There are two market days, Tuesdays and Saturdays. The former stems from 1744 when the King Felipe V, thanks to the mediation of an illustrious Vilagarcian, Antonio José Mendoza y Caamaño, III Marquis of Vilagarcía and Viceroy of Perú, granted the priviledge of a street market in order to compensate the great amount of Vilagarcían men levied into the army. This gathering between sellers and custormers has taken place uninterruptedly ever since. Its raison d’être has changed but its nature is still the same.
On Tuesdays and Saturdays the streets around the marketplace are closed to traffic along an area that comprises some thousands of square metres, and thus, becomes a big shopping centre where you can buy almost everything ranging from “stock shoes and clothing of up-market brands” as stallholders proclaim, to hardware tools or a great assortment of fabrics going through cold cuts and local wines, flowers and legumes gathered from the nearby orchads or bread and homemade desserts.
The hustle and bustle of the street reaches the fresh produce market, a unique building of 1929, situated by the side of the river Con and just in front of the historic-artistic pazo and convent of Vistalegre. Fish and seafood on the one hand, Galician meat and traditionally-made cold cuts on the other, compete against bread, cheese, honey and homemade jams. In an adjacent building, knwon as market “de la verdura” – of the vegetables- visitors can come across another similar display, the difference is that instead of sea products, here the protagonists come from the lands surrounding Vilagarcía. Dozens of small farmers from the council and neirbourhood councils gather together giving rise to an explosion of colours and extraordinary smells.
From time to time the marketplace presents some cooking shows and promotional events. You can also have the food previously bought in the marketplace cooked on the second floor to taste it in situ.
In short, the marketplace and street market constitue an extraordinary scene to feel the pulse of the city during the whole morning and then, after a luch break, to continue visiting the city.
