The Best Old Markets Still Trading

The oldest thing in a city is often not a building but a market: the same trade on the same street, with the buildings replaced around it. These nine are still trading, and most still sell to the people who live there, not only to visitors.

The oldest is Nishiki Market in Kyoto, where fish has been sold since 782, because the cold groundwater kept it fresh close to the palace. Venice's market moved to the Rialto in 1097 and is still there every morning, greengrocers by the bridge and the fish hall on the Grand Canal. La Boqueria in Barcelona was first recorded in 1217 as tables of meat by the city gate. Borough Market in London is recorded from 1276 — it claims 1014 — and has been on its present site since 1756.

Istanbul's Grand Bazaar grew from a core Mehmed II built in the 1450s into 61 covered streets. Ballarò, the oldest of Palermo's markets, is where the vendors still sing out their prices. Jemaa el-Fnaa in Marrakech is a market and a stage at once: its storytellers are why UNESCO began protecting oral heritage.

And two great 19th-century halls: Helsinki's Old Market Hall, open since 1889 on the harbour, and Budapest's Great Market Hall, opened in 1897, with paprika on the ground floor and food stalls upstairs.