Our Favourite markets

• L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue – Sundays:  L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue on Sundays. The ultimate two-for-one. There is an excellent street market with all the usual food stalls, but L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is also the antiques and bric-a-brac capital of Provence, maybe of France itself, and Sunday is flea market day too. All the antiques shops of L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue are open, and in the streets stalls groan under the weight of everything from worthless but intriguing family knick-knacks to genuine finds you will not want to live without.
• Coustellet – Sunday morning:   From April to December, and also Wednesday evening in summer. This farmers’ market in the centre of Coustellet has grown over the years and is now a must-go for food-lovers, especially if buying local from the people who grew the food is important to you. As well as seasonal fruit and veg there are stalls selling specialty bread, seafood, cheese, chicken and meat straight off the rotisserie, and all sorts of specialised craft items. Everyone seems to come the Coustellet market at 11am, despite knowing it is better to get here earlier.
• Bonnieux and Lourmarin – Friday morning:  Two great and good-looking village markets in Bonnieux and Lourmarin, with a short but picturesque drive through a cut in the mountain in between. You tend to see some of the same stalls from market to market, but obviously not in this instance. Both are unique and sit perfectly within two of the prettiest villages of Provence.
• Apt – Saturday mornings:  Running year-round, Apt market is the biggest market of the Luberon, with over 300 stalls filling the centre of town. It has fewer products aimed at tourists than other markets, and is heavily used by locals. Amid the 300 stalls you’ll find…everything! If you want something authentically from Apt, this is the world capital for candied fruit (fruit confit), so look out for that.
• Cucuron – Tuesday:  Cucuron market is small but perfectly formed around Cucuron’s most famous feature, the spring-fed water basin in the middle of the village with plane trees towering overhead. There are not that many stalls but they are very good, and the village of Cucuron is a beautiful place to explore. It was picturesque enough to be used as a movie location for both A Good Year and The Horseman on the Roof.
• Aix-en-Provence – Every day:  As Aix-en-Provence is one of Provence’s finest and most beautiful cities it is no surprise to find markets every day of the week. The peak Aix market days are Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturdays, when the old part of town is full of markets – Place des Precheurs for fruit, veg and fish; Place de Verdun, for non-food items, Place Richelme farmers’ market; flower market in Place de l’Hotel de Ville and down the central street of Aix, Cours Mirabeau for clothes and textiles. Not to mention the Christmas market for several weeks from late November, also on Cours Mirabeau.
• Avignon, Les Halles – Every day:  This is a covered market every morning except Monday in the centre of Avignon, with 40 stalls selling local produce – a must for foodies.   On Saturdays at 11 (except August) a leading chef does a cooking demonstration using produce from the market. A bonus: the multi-storey carpark built for the market, called Parking Les Halles.
• The big ones:   If you want to spend a morning lost amid the stalls of a big street market, head to the wonderful town markets of Forcalquier on Monday, Vaison la Romaine on Tuesday, St Remy de Provence on Wednesday, and Arles on Wednesday or Saturday.