Los Encants

One place I always enjoy in Barcelona is “Los Encants,” an outdoor thrift store and flea market on the edge of the Eixample. The market covers about 5 acres and vendors sell absolutely everything from tools to bicycles to ancient magazines to second-hand clothes to computer supplies. The stalls range from well presented displays of new shoes to chaotic piles of ancient wire and lighting fixtures. A bar in the center sells exquisite meatballs. Once reason I like it is because The Encants is still relatively undiscovered by tourists. There’s no moderne architecture here, and not a single vendor selling tote-bags. Rather, there’s hundreds of Catalan women buying colanders, men buying tire irons and Moroccan families buying supplies for their homes. Whenever we’re here we make a point of buying blank CD’s, kitchen supplies, and a years’ worth of socks and underwear for a fraction of their normal price.