As you can probably tell by recent blog posts, this summer has been full of busy days out to beautiful places. A place I went to a few weeks ago at the end of the summer, is the St Chinian market, I had been there previously but I didn’t think it was anything special seeing as I was still quite a young girl, however, upon my trip there this summer, I was utterly amazed by what was on offer.
So on a lovely sunny day, a few of my family members and I got in the car in the morning, and drove the 25 minute drive to St Chinian. As soon as we got there, I spotted at least 10 things I would’ve gladly bought, had I had enough money (ah yes, the glamorous life of a student – not having enough money for pretty things I don’t really need!). As we were walking through the market, I saw countless amazing stalls, there is really everything in this market. We saw a stall full of absolutely gorgeous straw bags and one of us decided to buy one. Petite, moyenne, and grande are all the sizes you can find there, whether you’re in need of a new beach bag, or even a very tiny bag to keep your essentials in, you’ll find what you’re looking for here!
We plodded along a little bit more and saw some beautiful clothes, more lovely handbags, some gorgeous jewellery (I have to admit, I was tempted!) and then we got to my absolute favourite stall – makeup! Now this wasn’t just any type of stall, this was the “everything for €1 stall”! So obviously, I stocked up! Everything you see displayed, was for one euro and it was definitely worth it! Obviously the products they had weren’t the high end Clinique or Chanel products, but it wasn’t “rubbish tat” either, this lovely saleswoman had hundreds of different nail varnishes, mascaras, foundations, eyeliners.. I could go on all night about what she had but you get the jist.
Makeup, jewellery, clothes and bags are of course not the only things you can find here, there is a massive range of different types of foods you can buy, and of course, everything has a little “taste plate” as I like to call it, so you can properly decide on what you would like to buy. There were two food stalls in particular that I really enjoyed, and that was the olive oil stall, and the olive stall. I never knew there were so many different flavours of olive oil, my mind was blown! Nut, lemon, orange, raisin…they were all so delicious I wanted to take them all home with me and eat nothing but olive oil and french bread for the next year! (rest assured, I didn’t!)
St Chinian market is truly one of the best markets I’ve ever been to, as there’s such a wide range of stuff to buy, you can even find an English food stall and an English book stall! Seafood, cheese, bread, wine, vegetables, fruit, even chinese food! Now one thing that’s become sort of a tradition in our family, is whenever we visit a market, we just have to buy a gorgeous roast chicken, lovely potatoes, and delicious ratatouille to bring home for our lunch, it is all already cooked, so if you’re strong enough to survive the drive home with all these lovely scents, then I definitely suggest you buy one of their gorgeous meals! (I guarantee you that there will ALWAYS be a stall for roast chickens at any market you visit!)
All in all it was a great day out and we all came home with bits and bobs we’d seen on the market stalls and we were all very happy with ourselves!
The great thing about this market is that everyone is so friendly and most of the market holders speak fluent english, we met some truly lovely people there, including a very perculiar French woman who was so amazed about the fact that we are English, she then proceeded to talk to us about her grandchildren (you know, as you do!) and we had a lovely chat with her.
It doesn’t really matter whether or not you need to stock up on food or not, you can just go there as a lovely morning out. There were even little animals that you could pet and play with, my heart melted as soon as I saw a baby pig playing with a kitten.
Another great thing is that there are cafés and restaurants all around the market, so after you’ve seen the entire market, you can walk a few more steps and enjoy a delicious lunch or refreshing drink. Go there and see for yourselves!
See you next time!
