For all the things you know you want, you go to the mall – for all the things you didn't, you go to El Rastro.
Some have called El Rastro – the pulsing flea-market artery coursing through central Madrid – the final border between Europe and Africa. That makes a lot of sense. Spain and Africa have had a lot of history, nearly a thousand years of to-ing and fro-ing between Moors and Conquistadors, Muslim and Christian. And through all the times of conflict, trade, talk and coffee have been as big a part Madrid's dialogue with its southern neighbours, as the sword. At El Rastro you can still get plenty of all three.Every Sunday, the tree-lined avenues of the Plaza de Cascorro and the Ribera de Curtidores become a stall-lined spectacle of merchandise from across continents. Modern jars with ancient, as you barter for mobile phone adapters mixed with collectible old coins – or rock-band T-shirts fluttering among vintage wedding dresses. Blend in its many side-streets, specialising in antiques or oil paintings or heaving with tapas bars, and El Rastro is a heady mix. Enough to draw in hordes of tourists, as well as flocks of Madrileños on the hunt for a bargain.The merchandise is often of the feathered-variety too – the Calle Fray Ceferino Gonzales is also known as the 'street of the birds', for its many stalls selling colourful birds and small pet animals. Their chirping and cawing adds to the jumble of market-owners shouts and pull-in lines. The name El Rastro actually comes from a somewhat unsavoury connection to Madrid's past. The tannery and the abattoir were at either end of these streets, back in the 15th century. And the blood left from dragging dead cattle from one, to the other, stained these streets with a red trail – el rastro in Spanish.The best time to browse El Rastro is early – 9 am or 10 am before the crowds descend. The best time for a bargain is around 3 pm, as the crowds thin and the stalls close. In between, El Rastro is best seen as a wonderful exercise in people-watching. Sit back in a side-street café, and watch the professionals at work, as they hook in some custom, playfully harass one another – or haggle, just for artistry of it.
