Shopping’s chic at Northern France’s Le Touquet market

With chic Parisians’ baskets spilling over with fresh local produce for a beach brunch or seafood soirée, it must be Northern France’s Le Touquet market

 

Stalls shade from the morning sun, there’s live music in the air and eager visitors pause to survey the artist’s easel. Crates spill with seafood, stalls groan with French charcuterie, local cheese, prettily-packaged jams, and fruit and vegetables are piled high. The town-clock on the art-deco archway overhead ─ symbol of sea and forest we’re told – says it’s kick off time at Le Touquet market, one of the best summertime events in Northern France and less than an hour’s drive from Calais. 

 

On Thursdays, Saturdays (and summertime Mondays), spend the morning wandering the cool confines of the covered market before heading into the sprawling square to browse elegant French finds from clothes, jewellery and shoes to homewares, baskets and French fabrics ─ Le Touquet’s not known as Paris-Plage for nothing! 

 

And our top Le Touquet market tips? Take a pole-position coffee break at Les Arcades café-terrace, grab a novelty cone-of-cheeses from Terre de Fromages or round off the morning with a glass of crisp white at Chez Perard’s oyster bar.