Sant Jordi

The Sant Jordi Car Boot Sale is a little bit like the magical mystery tour of Ibiza – as you wade your way through the dusty circles packed full of cars and stalls you are practically taken on a journey through the homes and lives of many of Ibiza’s residents, simply by perusing their cast-offs!

You can imagine, given the cosmopolitan-yet-eclectic nature of ibiza that this is not just your average flea market. Far from it in fact – this is one place where you can spend anywhere between 50c and 5000€ and go home with trash or treasure, every Saturday of the year, in the Sant Jordi Hippodrome.

Obviously no two weeks will ever be alike at Sant Jordi – all the more reason to go back week after week – but to give you a bit of an indication of what you can score, in the past we’ve seen six-foot tall paintings of Marilyn Monroe, second-hand authentic Vivienne Westwood coats, ornamental fairies made out of recycled coke cans and wire, cat-feeders with automatic timers, brand new DJ equipment, eons of old vinyl, saddles, snowboards, kites, one-off jewellery, Indian saris, oversized floor cushions, pipes in the shape of frogs, fluorescent ‘80s style prom dresses, Guardia Civil badges, cowboy boots aplenty and much much more…

Open all year round, Sant Jordi really becomes the social hotspot de jour in winter, with everyone who’s anyone arriving at the sprightly hour of 9am (and you’ll spot many who’ve yet to go to bed) to grab a coffee, catch up on island gossip, snap up a few unwanted (or desperately needed) purchases, walk their dogs and finish up with a bocadillo and cerveza – the perfect winter Saturday morning!

WHAT TO BUY: More to the point, what’s NOT to buy? The market is a hotch-potch of everything you ever wanted and plenty of things you didn’t know you wanted til now. Vintage clothes, one-off designs, second-hand furniture and even fluffy white kittens going cheap…
WHEN TO SHOP: The intense heat of the summer combined with the complete lack of shade at the Hippodrome makes the market a little bit too much to bear (unless you’re from the tropics or under a parasol with someone fanning you down), so we suggest going at the end of September. It’s also the best time to go as many seasonal workers are trying to make that last bit of extra cash before the winter sets in or get rid of their belongings to avoid excess baggage charges when they leave the island…