Brazil (Belo Horizonte [Minas Gerais])

Feira de Arte e Artesanato

It’s worth making an effort to be in Belo Horizonte on a Sunday morning for the Feira de Arte e Artesanato. One of the best of its kind anywhere in the country, with buyers and sellers coming from all over Brazil, this massive market takes over the Avenida Afonso Pena bordering the Parque Municipal. It’s always packed, and by mid-morning, moving through the narrow avenues between rows of stalls gets difficult; by 2pm, stallholders are packing up and leaving, and by 4pm the city’s efficient street cleaners will have removed all trace of the market. An excellent place for bargains, the market is split into sections, with related stalls grouped together – jewellery, leather goods, lace, ceramics, cane furniture, clothes, food, paintings and drinks, to name but a few. Prices of more expensive items and clothes are fixed – a lot of things on view are labelled – but otherwise there is some scope for bargaining.
As always with Brazilian markets, what’s going on around you is just as interesting as what’s for sale. If you can find a seat, set up camp at one of the bars at the corner with Rua da Bahia, and watch the stallholders hustling, buyers negotiating and people doing the same as you – just enjoying the action or listening to the buskers and serious musicians who play at the fringes of the crowds and sell tapes of their work.