Saint-Valery-sur-Somme market: bring basket & binoculars!

 

With visitors ditching their cars in favour of carefree days cycling around the bay, Saint-Valery-sur-Somme is already an environmentally-friendly kind of place. And that’s before you’ve hit its low-carbon-footprint market on a Sunday, maybe your best foodie event in France this summer. The fresh and organic produce from the Northern France doorstep provides a riot of colour and flavour (radishes, leeks, carrots, sea-plant samphire, huge bushes of feuille-du-chene lettuce…) and you can be sure you’re amongst experts – Monsieur le Primeur has been trading here for a mere 47 years!

 

With seal-spotting, kayaking, maybe the steam train or secret chapel, your day of bay discovery beckons, and here’s your picnic menu: zingy Maroilles cheese tart, perfectly-ripe strawberries, rotisserie, galettes and farmhouse Rollot heart-shaped cheese. Also, let’s face it, it’s not a French picnic without a warm baguette ─ just follow your nose into on-trend pâtisserie-boulangerie Watterlot with every conceivable variation on France’s iconic stick.

 

Along with a renewed passion for eating well – and eating sustainably ─ take home a gâteau battu (Picardy’s take on brioche), some local honey or maybe one of the handcrafted items: a driftwood mirror or lampshade, personalised jewellery or elegant linens in chic white and neutral tones – all 100% Made in France.