Our Mid Life Crisis Gap Year: To Market, To Market...

We like visiting the local towns when there is a market on as they really come alive and have a great buzz. Today there were four markets on, so we chose two....our local village of Monflanquin, and another town, Monpazier about 20km away...incidentally both of these towns are on the most Beautiful French Villages website, so we expected a lovely day.

As we expected a small market was setup in the square of Monflanquin, there were the usual cheeses, meats, fish, clothes, mushrooms, and a bit of a favourite of mine the stalls with the really big pans and great looking dishes that you can buy to eat now or take a meal away for the family.

A Nice Market In Nice Surrounds

The Food Smells Great

The Square Was Full Of Stalls

We have not been back into the actual village on Monflanquin since the first day we arrived, and yes, we still think it is as lovely as the fist time we saw it...it is just a really cute little village.

Brilliant Old Architecture

Restaurants Getting Ready

After walking around the market we spent some time walking around the village, making sure we explored areas we had not seen yet.

Narrow Lane Ways

On The Edge Of The Square

After spending close to an hour in Monflanquin we made our way to Monpazier.

Leaving Monflanquin Gave Us A Different View

Monpazier had a great great feel and a real buzz going on, there were quite a few people in the market and eating and drinking in the restaurants on the perimeter of the square. All of the stalls we are used to were there, the temperature was moving into the high 20's with a light breeze blowing through the town....a very nice day.

Walking Up To The Square

Entering Through Medieval Arches

Monpazier had a different looking square to other towns, the buildings making up the square seemed to be a wide variety of eras, but still had a lot of charm. At one end of the square was a medieval covered area that I imagined could be used for winter markets and events, it looked great.

This Market Felt Great

The Old Covered Area

Olives Fro Sale

Eventually we settled down for some lunch in a restaurant in one corner of the square next to the covered area......you won't believe it, but we close the same meal again! This time we had a very tasty mushroom omelette with a green salad, with crusty bread and a local rose wine. As we ate we noticed that there appeared to be a very large number of older English people all of whom appeared to live here.

The Restaurant We Ate At

As we finished our omelettes and started on our shared cheese platter the market stalls were packed away, and the square was emptying out.

Lunch Time, French Style

Then we noticed that they were roping off the covered area and people were appearing from all over the place with big trays of mushrooms, which they placed on the floor of this area. We went in and checked it out, I heard someone talking in English with an accent about the mushrooms...so I jumped in and asked what was going on.......Apparently, this was officially the first day of mushroom season, and the pickers were bringing in tray after tray of mushrooms that could not be sold until 3pm, which was only minutes away. This was such a big thing that it was also being covered by local TV and radio stations.

The Mushroom Market

The Mushrooms Just Kept Coming

The person that told us about the mushroom market was Swiss, and got very excited when he found out that we were from Australia....he called his sister across who was actually Australian from Armadale in NSW. She was attending a cooking school for 5 days and was doing a market visit to buy foods....Lesley got talking to the French woman who ran the school. They spoke for quite a while...I am sure that they were exchanging ideas!