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When Olives Beckon
Market Day in Loule
by Norman Mark
You must go to Loule on Saturday. During our visit to Portugal, it was something we were told
again and again by over a dozen people. One informed guide book even advised that no trip to the Algarve, the
seaside district of Portugal, would be complete without seeing Loule on market
day. I have near zero-tolerance for shopping. After twenty minutes in any clothing store,
I'm ready to impale myself on sharpened coat hangers. Ten minutes in an antique shop and I'm looking to end it all on
an apple corer. But shopping at Loule
on Saturday is not to be missed! Loule is within the Algarve, a district famous for almost
200 kilometers of white-sand beaches along the Atlantic. The Algarve was discovered decades ago by
sun-searching Germans and rain-weary British. Today, a small, but growing advance party of Americans is settling
there.
Like anyone visiting Portugal for the first time, we wanted
to see everything--olive and cork trees, Lisbon, castles and the beaches of the
Algarve. Along the way we found one of the great, romantic hotels in
the world, the Palacio de Seteais in Sintra, only 28 kilometers from
Lisbon. The quality antiques in every
room, the formal gardens which relax the soul, the nearby castle lit at night
and seen from the walkway leading to our perfect room created a dreamy
mood. Go there to fall in--or
renew--love! We wandered a bit further north and then meandered east towards
Spain. In Medieval times, Spain was
apparently a big problem for Portugal and the Spanish border is dotted with
perfectly preserved or renovated castles. In a single day, we explored five castles which could have easily housed
"Sleeping Beauty". Eight days after leaving in Lisbon, we were basking on a
beach in southern Portugal. These days
many visitors go directly to the Algarve by landing at the international
airport in Faro.
That day, we drove into Loule, parked on a narrow
cobble-stone street just off the tree-lined main square and walked towards the
market. Loule is a small, provincial capital, a normally sleepy town
with one wide boulevard, a few confusing roundabouts and enough tile-lined
churches for that Kodak moment. There was purpose in the air. A cop was politely directing foot and auto traffic through the
roundabout at the end of the long square. Hundreds of people carrying empty plastic shopping bags were anxious to
see them filled. The market was held in a huge open warehouse and spilled out
on to the streets adjoining it. The
English and German accents of the expatriates mixed with the Portuguese to
create a happy cacophony of language.
The area was filled with apparently happy commerce in candy,
deserts, and bread. A heavy-set woman
in a colorful babushka sitting on the curb brandished live and protesting
chickens for sale. When we purchased
some rolls, the woman selling bread smiled as if she were about to be
beatified. The large area devoted to
the sale of fresh fish miraculously had none of the pungent odor of seafood
departments in American supermarkets.
I stopped at an outdoor counter which seemed to have every possible variety of olive. I asked, in English, "Could I taste one?" The youthful woman smiled and answered in Portuguese. It was easy to understand, "Be my
guest." I warily
tasted. And discovered olive
nirvana. This was quite possibly the
best olive ever created through the cooperation of sun, water and the
farmer. I instantly bought a small,
plastic bag of that variety. "Could I taste that one, too?" Another nod indicating yes, another perfect,
slightly more salty olive. I purchased
another bag. And another and
another. I could not resist any olive I
tasted. I discovered that the olives I was buying were sweetened by
the addition of a local wild mint. The
black olives were blacker and shinier than I had ever seen. The dark brown ones were saltier and better
than I any I had ever tried. The green
olives were indescribably delicious, without the caustic bite of the
too-rapidly cured and scored olives. I bought several more varieties before my wife advised me
that perhaps we should leave an olive or two for the Portuguese to enjoy,
advise that went largely unheeded. We wandered the streets leading away from the market in the
midst of a large ambling crowd. In
every other city we visited, we saw and certainly heard poster-plastered sound
trucks and cars blaring political messages about the current campaign. The political operatives found Loule's market
day too tempting to resist. As we
walked, we found ourselves in the midst of a movable political rally with cars
blaring music which wouldn't get my vote. We asked a local official about the motto of one party and
the best translation he could offer was the mysterious, "The flies stay
the same, but people can change."
We wandered into a store specializing in tiles. There was a woman applying delicate blue
paint to an unfinished clay vase. From
other examples in the room, we realized that, when fired, that pale aqua color
becomes a vibrant royal blue. The crowd grew larger and it was easy to walk with it, down
a gentle hill, along sidewalks made narrower by the mass of people and the merchandise being displayed.
A few blocks away, there was a large open
space resembling a gravel parking lot for a big city stadium. We had found the
gypsy market. There were four or five long rows of vans, cars and
booths. Canvas tents attached to the
vehicles and held up by stakes provided shade in the blinding sun. Quietly intense children played at the feet
of their elders along with the inevitable mixed-breed dogs. There were booths specializing in delicately sewn white
lace, sheets and pillow cases, audio tapes of Brazilian music popular in
Portugal, complicated Persian rugs, blouses, pants, belts, leather vests,
sweaters, and shoes. Older, swarthy men, dressed in black long sleeved shirts and
pants despite the 75-degree temperature, talked to each other, their black
handlebar mustaches within inches of each other. They smoked cigarettes and kept an eye on the women, younger men
and boys who sold the merchandise. At the entrance to the gypsy market, a man and a woman,
swaddled in strips of light gray material as if they just awakened from their
own burial, were silently enacting tableau of lovers who kiss and then lose
each other. The crowd donated a few
coins to the performers and then moved on. So did we, returning to a little park, where an accordionist
was playing Portuguese songs and where a demitasse of strong coffee or an ice
cold draft beer could be purchased. We
sat in the shade and rested, allowing the busy scene of people walking from
market to gypsy stalls and back to pass us by. Our visit to Portugal was complete. Loule is 13 kilometers northeast of Vilamoura on route
N-396. The regional market there is
conducted on Saturdays until midnight, although much of the activity is over by
3 p. m. Norman Mark is a Chicago-based travel writer, TV journalist and documentary producer. His email address is: Normanmark@aol.com. |
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We flew American Airlines from Chicago to London's Heathrow,
easily transferred to British Airways for the flight into Lisbon. A few days later we rented a car and
wandered north. The path to Loule was
long, circuitous and delightful. 
We rented an apartment for a week in Santa Barbara de
Nexe, a small town in the hills above
Faro. Loule was a short hilly drive,
less than 15 minutes, from our apartment. The Saturday Market Day became a must see.
Local farmers had converged on the market and they were
selling red ripe tomatoes worthy of a picture on a poster, limes and lemons
which invited imagining them in pies, as many varieties of peppers as found in
a Burpee Seed catalog and barrels of variously pickled olives. 
Days earlier, at another market in another city 150
kilometers north, we had discovered the dangers of buying "underdone"
olives. These olives had been cut, or
scored, to hasten the curing process. They re-announced their presence for much of that night.
At the end of the leafy, tiled main square, we were amazed
to see a beautiful young woman wearing thong underwear energetically dancing
with a rakishly handsome man. It was,
we were told, a way to attract a crowd for the politicians, who were obviously
not going to speak about family values that day.