Friday, October 23, 2015

Porta Portese Flea Market, ROME

Very few stalls in the nearby Via Ippolito Nievo. Best to avoid, or save for last





All fake guns (i suspect a few air guns thrown in for a good measure)


Loved this one. Tons of USSR memorabilia, and i bought an uber-cool "camera. for spy"

fresh orange juice stall! this guy was awesome






fun fact
i talked one of the stall guys next to the orange juice place into selling me his personal giant old suitcase so i could use it to pack my stuff to take back home. best 8 euros i ever spent (and worst 8 he ever made probably). i still wonder what he did with all of his stuff at the end of the day. This is a great travel tip in general, BTW. don't ever check luggage if you can help it. Saves a huge delay when flying out. Flying back in, however, is quite a challenge without a giant suitcase to lug all 'yer flea gems :)

a few handy italian phrases:
flea market = mercato della pulci
too expensive = troppo caro
discount = sconto
how much = quanto costa

do not attempt to go through the actual Porta Portese gate, as you will have to talk for 20 minutes through many many hawker stands selling ripoff t-shirts and cheap new plastic knick-knacks. the real market location is in this square, although there are a few decent stalls scattered around the nearby Via Ippolito Nievo, surrounded by tons of the aforementioned hawker stands (very frustrating trying to fish them out)

Source + info: this and this

Visited September, 2015

Toji Temple Flea Market, KYOTO





















pretty decent, considering the fact the Japs are really really clean and probably don't even have a word for 'flea' or 'trash' or 'second-hand'.  Not very expensive unless you're after artisanal products (scissor guy did not agree to sell me a pair of really gorgeous ones [made for barbers] unless he personally fix them on the spot, and demanded Y7800 for it. sheesh)

FOOD: none. only an iced coffee stand.

location on map

source + info: this list
visited September, 2015