Holiday Day 18 – Tips for enjoying a French Market

To the first timer and casual observer French markets are a bewildering affair, particularly the larger ones. It is easy to waste huge amounts of time and not buy anything that you wanted. You can also spend a surprising amount of money. So based on our many years experience and with the example of today in Vaison here are some tips.

11)    Get there early – For many reasons, firstly it always difficult to park as inevitably the market takes much of a town’s prime car parking space. We arrived in Vaison this morning at 08:30 much later and we would have either been circling the streets or parking a long way from the market.

22)    The early bird catches the worms – In general it is less crowded at 9am and so easier to see what you are buying and have a chance to pick over products and converse with stallholders. The best things are sold early. French housewives are brilliant at snaffling the best produce, leaving the second rate to the latecomers.

33)    Have a list of what you want – It is very easy to get distracted, you will spend hours looking a unsuitable Provencal pots or wonder why they sell camouflage netting. Have a list and stick to it.

44)    Reconnoitre – You are much better the second week because you know where the stalls are. Usually there are sectors for each type of stall. For instance the grocery stalls maybe all in one road.

55)    Look at who is popular – Marion wanted to buy some garlic and there were competing stalls. One was far more popular and yes by choosing it Marion got a bargain.

66)    Get out early – An hour tramping round a market is enough for most sane people. Besides which our bag got extremely heavy. It was far better to drive away at 10:15 and have a quiet restorative coffee in our local village.

So we had a successful day at the market, we bought some outstanding produce including the juiciest strawberries we have eaten all summer and some delicious dried ham.

There is always something comic, today’s was a couple pushing what looked like a an enclose pram, inside not a baby but two terrier dogs!

I hope that this inspires you to visit the market when you are in France.