Porta Portense Sunday Market

Sunday stroll through the Walmart of Rome

We live upstairs from the southern end of this famous market.  Our end is not the famous flea market; most guidebooks suppose you will shop starting north at the actual Porta Portense, part of Rome's original city wall.  But what our end misses in flea-i-ness, it more than makes up for in selling things that ordinary Romans need to buy.  Us, too.  We need some things to get on with our cozy winter life.



Today was our day to get our stuff and stroll through the whole market.  Cool enough for sweaters.  Not massively crowded.  Vendors doing their vendor act--some are quite lively and others sit around.  No hard sell here--it is pretty pleasant.

We have a list: electric adapter which goes from wide European-style 2 prong to piccolino Italian style 3-in-a row prong.  I have not seen this kind of plug anywhere but Italy so it is not surprising that they have lots of these adaptors around.  But in our house, never enough.

OK: electric adaptor, coffee mugs, shower caddy, clothes pins, toilet brush, knife sharpener, bleach.  That is for the house.  I personally am on the lookout for fuzzy slippers and a winter hat.

It is more fun to search with items in mind.

We have already picked up a frying pan and sauce pan.  Our friend Jean bought a large coffee pot which we use constantly.  This apartment is actually very well equipped but we do not do everything the Italian way--we need big coffee mugs and pans with lids.

The market starts on our end with a hamburger/sausage guy and a few plant stalls.  We have several blocks of clothes stalls--new clothes with every kind of stall from lingerie to shoes to coats, dresses and men's suits.  Fuzzy slippers are mainly for bambini and not my size.  Bummer.  There are winter hats in one stall but I do not need one just yet.  Several stalls of cashmere shawls with no hats.  What's up with that?  African carvings slip in surrounded by coat stalls.

Finally, housewares and electrical stalls.  To-ing and fro-ing to get the electric adaptor and then change for a 10. We manage to use our few words of Italian and have fun with the several guys who have to help in our transaction. This multi-party effort is repeated at the houseware stall where we find a knife-sharpener (affilacoltelli, we now learned) and reject plastic cereal bowls (below the bottom line).

Our shopping is reinforcing our experience that Italians are really nice.  Even in business transactions, our main interactions so far, merchants are personal and willing to try to communicate with us and actually help us.  It is charming.  We have had one Italian lesson so far and have a few things we can say--but cannot remember our words when faced with an actual Italian, so we appreciate their patience.  People in our local stores remember us now and let us try our Italian.  The guys at the butcher shop were gallant in their praise when I learned "mezzo-kilo" of hamburger. (We enjoy our small accomplishments.)

Anyway, the market vendors are just as nice.  And we got our stuff, for the most part.

Coffee mugs are elusive.  We passed out of the new clothes and housewares, through the curtains, slipcovers and chandeliers and reached the actual used-stuff part of the flea market before finding any coffee mugs as we know them in the US.  Italians seem to use tiny coffee cups on tiny saucers or little tea cups with saucers.  No mugs to be had in the new-stuff part of the market.






Since is is a lovely day and we were in wandering mode, we wandered.  The range of old, used stuff that is on offer is mind-boggling, especially to me who hates to shop.  Cameras, scopes.  Old radios and telephones.  Books galore.  Used housewares--including a few mugs.  Finally found one.  Really--one.  For 1 Euro, Ok.

Blocks more of market before we could find our way out.  Yay, we made it to Via di Trastevere and the tram.  At our stop-- Yay, again--the Chinese store on the corner has plain white coffee mugs. Maybe Chinese stores are a human universal.   Then home for a mug of coffee.

That was this morning.  This afternoon we took our walk the other direction to check out a supermarket.  They have racks of mugs.