The warm ambience of a street market

I can't believe that already twenty days passed since I was wandering among the stalls of this street market in the city of Almería. Time flies so quickly and it feels like it was just a few days ago that we were on our journey through the south of Spain and later, through the neighbour country, Portugal. On the other side, the dates when the photos were taken prove a different reality, it was the first day of January. The Christmas lights were still decorating the city where we took an evening walk. Taking the main commercial street to go back to the hotel we passed by this street market.

Actually, we didn't know it would be there, the market. We were just following the navigation on the phone and knew that we had to go with this wide street. The surprise was nice, as the lights from the city centre continued here too. It was still so festive. A city is much more colourful on a dark winter night in this way. I can't deny that I find a lot of joy in these little details.

Those lights were extended between the palm trees, but also, every stall had a small roof construction with a smaller light design. It reminds me of snowflakes or deeply frozen raindrops. But the overall atmosphere on this street market was much warmer than ice or snow would provide.

A warmer ambience. No, not just because there were some cute items where you can burn incense sticks, but in general. The feeling that the whole event gave me was pleasant. But back to the warmth and burning stuff. So, these little burning houses that were handcrafted (according to the sellers) serve for burning essential oils and incense cones and sticks.

The cute little houses had chimneys, and although I am not sure if the smoke would come out exactly from there, the idea is excellent. I could already imagine a rural area, in winter, with just a few houses and smoke coming out from the chimneys. In this case even better, as the scent of the essential oils and incense is what we could be able to smell.

As in every crafts market, there were paintings and hand-painted items. Little boxes with nice blue covers, painted clocks, bowls, hangers, bookmarks, you name it. The sea is important for people living on the coast so many times the topic is the sea and its protection from pollution. The sooner we all realize it the better.

Tourism is one of the main income for citizens of coastal towns, however, once it used to be agriculture and fishing. The sea means life, inspiration, and health, a mass of salty water that connects places, coasts and people.

Many times we also see lather items. It can be very rewarding, to work with that material. You can express your creativity by making bags, wallets, belts, all other accessories, or shoes. That is what I liked a lot, the shoes that were made of leather. And coloured!

Something that I see for the first time on a street market. Manual coffee grinders! My family has one of these antique-styled manual coffee grinders. And if I remember well, they used it a few times for the purpose of grinding, however, it was showcased on the top of the kitchen furniture just for decoration. That was (and still is) a place for more antiques, like antique kitchen scales with weights. I always wanted to play with that, but you guess, I was not allowed to do that.

Anyway, we can measure the weight of food with more modern scales nowadays. Without any doubt, the chestnuts brought here were measured in a different style. Probably bought in bulk and brought to the market to be roasted. @nanixxx, this is for you. This is how the chestnuts are before they are roasted.

After being roasted, they are sold in small paper cornets. I bought this still in the city centre, by the Cathedral, before reaching the market.

They are hot so you have to take care not to burn yourself (if you don't have the patience to wait 😁). You have to peel off the hard skin, which cracks because they are slightly cut with a knife. One tiny drawback of eating roasted chestnuts on the street - your fingertips may become black. But it is a small sacrifice compared to the taste you get from this little treat.

The market offered a lot more. So many kiosks and different items were displayed here, in Almería that evening. The wide street with stalls between the long row of palm trees gave exactly that warm feeling that everyone should experience on a winter evening. Well, the lights, the chestnuts and the burning little houses helped with that feeling!