In the Mercado dos Lavradores

The first thing you notice is the smell.  It's early morning but the day's already warming, lending weight to the punch of the pungent aroma.  The front of the building is unassuming, hiding behind the bright flower stalls that lure in the tourists.  Wander past the beckoning dark green tiled atrium laden with stalls selling distilled sunshine, gleaming jewel coloured dried chillies threaded onto strings and oozing fat brown dates stuffed with plump golden walnuts.  Keep going, walk past the disused antique scales with rusted pans that now serve as a decorative accessory.  Eventually you'll come to the remains of the historic fish market: the core of it still beats with a heart of commerce overlaid with the unmistakable sounds of manual labour.  Heavy trays  rest on solid trestle tables, deep-filled with dull chunks of grey-white ice.  It doesn't sparkle like crystal, or shine like stars – there's no poetic beauty here.  That ice has a serious job to do.  The bustling market is patrolled by seekers of novel perspectives.  One tourist, unmistakably dressed in a garish green shirt, cranes over a tray then pushes his sunglasses onto his forehead, raising his camera to snap the perfect shot.  The locally caught fish have been arranged photogenically in size order: scabbard fish, red mullet and the groupers, then smaller tigerish mackerel and shiny sardines like sleek slivers of lively quicksilver.  Each fish lies on its side, an unseeing eye looking upwards, observing the room and the long distance to the high off-white ceiling above, as heavy-gloved fish sellers move between the tables unloading more boxes of the latest catch.  Still the tourists prowl, hunting authenticity, getting under the feet of the sellers and the usual buyers, local housewives and restaurant chefs coming for the freshest ingredients for their daily specials.  The visitors keep chasing their perfect memento, drinking in the colours, the scents and noise, and the bustle.  They savour the hard work going on around them, grateful that for a while that taking photos is the only job they have.