Eight cities visit Barcelona to understand first-hand its market system

The 17th, 18th and 19th of October, Barcelona will be a festival of market fresh produce and other craft foods thanks to the annual 'Mercat de Mercats' fiesta, which last year drew a whopping 250,000 people to the square and surrounds of Barcelona’s Cathedral to taste Catalan foodstuffs and beverages over the three day event. 

This year, thanks to the URBACT Markets project, eight European and Mediterranean cities will visit the celebrations and to carry out an intensive study tour o see for themselves how Barcelona organizes its markets system.

These include Athens, Torino, Toulouse, Wrockaw and Suceava from the URBACT group, Genova and Xhanti (Greece) and Cairo from the Marakanda Project, a EU financed Mediterranean project grouping together various cities developing their markets.

The visitors will join the mayor of Barcelona at the “Mercat de Mercats” fair, organised by the Municipal Institute of Barcelona Markets (IMMB), a Barcelona City Council agency, and tour various market facilities along with IMMB executives.

Attica excited about visit

One of the visitors on the Study Visit will be the President of Attica Council's Flea Markets, Mr Nikolaos Amanatidis and the Regional Councillor Mr. Leonidas Athanasiadis .

According to Mr Athanasiadis, “Such initiatives give us the opportunity to participate and exchange good practice and acquire the “know-how” to implement and adjust policies it in the very best possible way for our own situation”.

“It is a challenge for us to develop our local markets in a way that they will become sustainable. But we believe they will contribute to the regeneration and the economic growth of our local societies.”