3 Best Sights in Provence, France

Farmers' Market

Aubagne on a market day is a feast in more ways than one. Depending on the season, for sale are fresh local asparagus, vine-ripened tomatoes and melons, and mesclun scooped by the gnarled fingers of blue-aproned ladies in from the farm (Tuesday, Thursday, and weekends, 8–1:30). The weekend markets make more of regional products; those labeled Pays d'Aubagne must be organically raised. Although they're not as social as markets in Aix, these farmers' markets are more authentic.

Les Halles

By 6 am every day but Monday, merchants and artisans have stacked their herbed cheeses and arranged their vine-ripened tomatoes with surgical precision in arrangements that please the eye. This permanent covered market is as far from a farmers' market as you can get, each booth a designer boutique of haute de gamme (top-quality) goods, from jewel-like olives to silvery mackerel to racks of hanging hares worthy of a Flemish still life. Even if you don't have a kitchen to stock, consider enjoying a cup of coffee or a glass of (breakfast) wine while you take in the sights and smells. You can also tuck into a plate of freshly shucked oysters and a pichet of the crisp local white.

Marché aux Poissons

Vieux Port

Up and going by 8 am every day, this market—immortalized in Marcel Pagnot's Fanny (and Joshua Logan's sublime 1961 film adaptation)—puts on a vivid and aromatic show of waving fists, jostling chefs, and heaps of still-twitching fish from the night's catch. Hear the thick soup of the Marseillais accent as blue-clad fishermen and silk-clad matrons bicker over prices, and marvel at the rainbow of Mediterranean creatures swimming in plastic vats before you, each uglier than the last: the spiny-headed rascasse (scorpion fish), dog-nosed grondin (red gurnet), the monstrous baudroie or lotte (monkfish), and the eel-like congre. "Bouillabaisse" as sold here is a mix of fish too tiny to sell otherwise; the only problem with coming for the early morning show is that you have to wait so long for your bouillabaisse lunch.

Quai de la Fraternité, Marseille, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, 13001, France

Recommended Fodor's Video