Local Market Towns

Most French towns have regular market days. The markets are usually a mix of stalls selling local food and produce plus clothes, fabric, shoes, utensils, jewelry, and household items. Most food stall holders will let you try before you buy but if you need to prompt them the phrase is "Gouté, s'il vous plait?"

Location	Time from Domaine des Etoiles	Day
Bram	30 minutes	Wednesday morning
Carcassonne	30 minutes	Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday
Castelnaudary	30 minutes	Monday
Chalabre	30 minutes	Saturday
Collioure*	2 hour 30 minutes	Wednesday, Sunday.
Couisa	30 minutes	Tuesday (small)
Esperaza	35 minutes	Thursday, Sunday.
Gruissan*	1 hour 30 minutes	Wednesday, Saturday
Lagrasse	30 minutes	Saturday
Lezignan-Corbieres	1 hour	Wednesday (large market)
Limoux	15 minutes	Friday
Mirepoix	30 minutes	Monday
Narbonne*	1 hour 15 minutes	Monday to Saturday
Quillan	45 minutes	Wednesday,Saturday
Revel	1 hour	Saturday

*market towns on the Mediterranean coast, combine a trip to the market with a visit to the sea side. Great fun to buy things for a picnic lunch or if you go to the market in Narbonne the cafes in the market hall will cook what you buy. There are other markets a bit like car boot sales that are interesting and fun to visit - brocantes, puces, and vide-greniers. The brocantes are markets where people sell used things, household items, clothes not really antiques but a lot of very interesting things. The puces - flea markets are mainly clothes. If you like to rummage the interesting ones are vide-greniers and foires brocantes. "vide-grenier" means empty attic, or empty the attic, it's usually a combination of local people and dealers. Angela Rippon wrote about the fabulous vide-grenier at Mirepoix in an article for Guardian Unlimited about the best flee markets in Europe. A foire brocante is along similar lines to a vide-grenier, but with more dealers and generally higher prices.