Hobart's Saturday market

CEBU, Philippines - One of the first things I noted during my city tour, on my first day in Hobart, capital city of the island state of Tasmania, Australia, was the long stretch of street called Salamanca Place with our driver/tour guide’s spiel of its famous Saturday market.

A flea market – or “people’s market,” as they call it there – is a good indicator of local color and the location of great buys. Hurrying through my breakfast on my last day, I joined Denis Woodford for a walk down to Salamanca Place from our hotel (Mercure Hotel on Bathurst St.). I met Denis as we were picked up for our full day tour to Port Arthur. Since we both got the tour package with lunch, we lunched together and decided to check out the Saturday market the following day.

I mistook Denis to be a Filipino but he is an Australian immigrant from Singapore. He describes himself as Eurasian, of a Malay-Irish mother and a British father. When I pointed out that he looks Malay, he admitted that he belongs to the “dark Woodfords.” Being a pastry chef, he was checking out possibilities of transferring to cool Tasmania. His family still resides in Singapore, proudly announcing that his nephew is a Singaporean triathlon athlete in the coming Singapore Youth Olympics. You see, one of the positive sidelights to a trip is striking a friendship across cultures. (Berta & Bill Gillis of Florida – who we befriended in our Alaska cruise 15 years ago – still keep in touch at Christmas.)

Salamanca Place got its name in honor of the Duke of Wellington’s victory over Napoleon’s army in Salamanca, Spain, in 1812. Its row of sturdy sandstone buildings were mostly warehouses, some dinky mariner’s pubs and a notorious bordello known as The Blue House (still haunted by the 1900s madam Ma Dwyer’s friendly ghost.). Denis and I unknowingly had our lunch there, in what is now Irish Murphy’s, at the corner of Salamanca and Gladstone Sts. A group of musicians was playing Irish songs at that corner. There are a number of sidewalk entertainers during market day, providing spirited Irish songs or classical chamber music, even some dancers and choristers

By the 1970s, the buildings have become chic art galleries, fine bookshops, museums and memorabilia shops, souvenirs and curio shops, fashionable clothing stores, as well as trendy pubs and fancy restaurants. At the time, so sprouted the temporary street stalls for the Saturday Market. From 9 am until 3pm, Salamanca Place is open only to pedestrian traffic as tourists and locals browse through items mostly sold by their creators – silver jewelry pieces and accessories with semi precious stones, sculpted flowers with seated fairies and elves, hand-tooled leather craft, and finely chiseled hardwood containers and decors. There are also stalls of second hand clothes – vintage or contemporary, of antiques, chinaware and figurines from old ancestral manors; food and fruits, wines and cheese from nearby farms. It’s a shopper’s haven, indeed!

But pictures are more eloquent than puny retelling of an adventure, so enjoy the photos of Salamanca’s Saturday Market in Hobart.