Lunchbreak Browsing.

The novelty of being pretty much in the centre of a city has yet to wear off. It's so nice to be able to take full advantage of my lunch break and do a bit of mooching, it really helps that Oxford has so many places to explore too!

One of my favourite things to do happens weekly on Wednesdays and Thursdays, and that's the Oxford Giant Market, a food and vintage market in the Gloucester Green market square.



It's a great place to pick up really tasty dim sum and there are quite a few fun shops and cafés dotted around the outside, including The Old Fire Station, which holds entertainment and arts events and even includes a cute art shop that sells indie prints and jewellery.

I still had my camera from snapping at the Lush Christmas event so I took the opportunity to take a few pictures, I even managed to pick up Dolly's namesake record for just £1, something that pleased me no end - it helps that it's a pretty nice cover with cute spiel on the back too.








A big part of me hopes this guy is still there today - might be one of my biggest regrets not buying him. WHATISHE?!










I just read that there's going to be a more vintage/retro focussed market happening on Saturdays from 8th November onwards so that will be great for Christmas and allow for a more thorough root through all the hidden treasures(!)

It's slightly less glamourous and a lot smaller than Spitalfields, but so much more affordable and less like money for old rope, I definitely recommend swinging by, if only for the dumplings. ♥

Marlborough Mooch.

I'm never sure how current/instant blogging needs to be, which I think is why I'm more of a #latergram girl than posting right away. I'd rather take it in and think about it later... probably, or I'm just a bit lazy and like I said, it's been one of those weeks.

Even though it's over a week ago now, I just really wanted to share these snaps from Marlborough with you. I quite like Marlborough as a town, it's so pretty and old (and perfect at Christmas time). It might be the first time we've visited it when it hasn't been pouring with rain and it was nice to check out their nice, if precariously placed in the middle of the road, Saturday market. I think next time we visit we must have a visit up the church tower, which we would have for the £2 it cost were it not for the dull day.


We stumbled across this darling alleyway that we hadn't been down before, it had the cutest shops with the nicest window displays.













It's nice to have a local town that's just as good for a mooch as wandering up the town. I do like how Newbury is so close to so many places like that, it makes for interesting weekends even when we're not gallivanting off elsewhere.

Market Day :: Alte

I think my favourite photographs from the whole holiday were the ones I took in Alte. A short 35-minutes inland from Albufeira, we popped over to Alte for their market and were promised a traditional Portuguese town with whitewashed houses and cobbled streets - it didn't disappoint.




The market in Alte takes place on the third Thursday of the month and despite the fact that I forget about livestock trading being totally cool in most parts of Europe (there were the tiniest baby bunnies. sad), it was a pretty good, a bustling place full of a variety of stalls.











Despite the smell I do kind of wish I'd got around to trying some salt cod, just to see you know. Reminded me of my daytrip to Tai O when I was in Hong Kong a few summers ago.





These were really some of the most beautiful views I saw in Portugal, better than any seaside sunset (although the view from our villa was pretty swag). It's an environment so far removed from what I'm used to but in the best way possible.





It's sounds a little morbid to say but Alte's cemetery is definitely worth a visit. Far from being a place filled with sadness, you get more of a feeling that life and death are celebrated and honoured here, and there's something quite heartwarming about that.






Gecko was one of my favourite Algarve finds. I don't think you can visit Portugal without having a little chilli and to find a shop totally dedicated to it was great. I came away with some of their delightful chocolate chilli fudge, so good! ♥






The roads to and from Alte are made for fun driving, it's a shame we didn't have Moon's convertible, at least we could still take advantage of the views.


I'd definitely recommend visiting Alte if you ever visit the Algarve. Despite the fact that we only really picked it because it was the only place holding a market that we could get to during our short stay, it was a beautiful place to walk around and really gave a more authentic feel for Portugal. It made a nice change from the seaside scenes we'd been used to and I guess looks 'most like' what you expect Portugal to look like.