The Good Life France Magazine September/October 2015 | Page 14

The market has grown so large, due to its increasing popularity, it now sprawls out from beneath the plane trees and up around the post office. Here there are stalls laden with crockery (all made in France of course!), with pots and pans and knives of every sort. There’s a man selling spices and another selling freshly made paella. And everywhere is busy. We take a table at a nearby café and sip bitter espresso as we watch the men clustered in groups talking politics or gossiping while their wives pick the best of the vegetables with a practiced art. And all the while we are assailed by the mouth-watering aroma of freshly baked bread and charcuterie until we too join the throngs of the buying public.

Mont Valier is a mountain in Ariège in the Pyrenees. Its name comes from Valerius, the mythical first bishop of Couserans, who made an ascent of the peak.