Brazilian food markets...

After last night's blog where I gave you a glimpse of some beautiful Brazilian dishes, I thought I'd share a few photos of the huge market we went to in Penedo. Founded in 1614 it is a fine example of both Portuguese and Dutch architecture, set on the wide Sao Francisco river. We stopped off  for the night on our drive from Salvador to Praia do Patacho. A lively town full of restaurants, shops and cafes it was the perfect place to break up the journey.

 This was Matilda cheering for joy that she was out of the scorching car, enjoying the amazing sunset over the river and taking in the breeze.

Markets are extremely commonplace in Brazil as well as the fruit and vegetable trucks that drive round the more remote villages. There are trucks that sell all sorts of goodies round the villages, we saw a toy truck one day and another gentleman on a motorbike loaded up with umbrellas.

The Saturday market in Penedo occupies the entire town, local farmers all pile in to sell their produce. There was a fabulous handwoven basket section where we bought Matilda her first little basket, when I was her age I was rather obsessed with these. Needless to say that's one thing she takes after her Mummy, she loves it and it goes everywhere with her.

There were a lot of unrecognisable fruit and vegetables, live poultry,fish that were still jumping, food stalls, fallen off the back of a lorry stalls, basically whatever you wanted was up for sale here. The whole town and it's surrounding areas turn up on a Saturday morning, it was packed, we got completely lost and had to ask about 5 different people how to get back to the riverfront. We were getting slightly panicky as we're aiming to leave by 9am and it was now 9.30 and we had to complete our drive before sunset. Finally we managed to get out but not before enjoying the vibrant colours of the endless fruit and veg stalls.

Sadly what I can't share with you were the sounds and music that filled the market, indeed wherever you go in Brazil music surrounds you and whisks you away. The dusky heat, the smells of food cooking, the constant chatter, shouting, singing and selling still fill my ears now as I sit here in more Siberian climes.