El Rastro

El Rastro has run on Sundays and public holidays since at least the sixteenth century, when the area held the slaughterhouses and tanneries whose trail of blood is said to have given the market its name. It runs down the Ribera de Curtidores and through the surrounding streets from mid-morning to mid-afternoon, with a thousand or more stalls: clothes, secondhand books, records, tools, old postcards, ironmongery, keys, and a substantial amount of cheap new merchandise mixed among the genuine junk. The antique shops around the Plaza del General Vara del Rey open the same day and hold most of the interesting material. When it winds down, the bars of La Latina fill for vermouth, which is the second half of the ritual.

What you actually see

• The stall streets - over a thousand pitches through the La Latina lanes.
• The antique shops - permanent dealers around the Plaza General Vara del Rey.
• The secondhand sections - books, records, tools and old paper.
• The vermouth afterward - the bars filling once the market closes.

When to go

Sunday mornings and public holidays, from around nine to three; arriving early gives space to move and the best of the stock. It runs year-round in all weather.

Honest expectations

Crowds are dense enough that moving through the main street is slow, and pickpocketing is a well-documented problem. Much of the merchandise is cheap new goods rather than genuine flea market material. It closes by mid-afternoon.

Nearby

La Latina's tapas streets adjoin; the Plaza Mayor and the Palacio Real are north.