Markets

Sell an amazing variety of items:

• local vegetables, fresh fish, cooked and fresh meats, cheeses, honey, pollen and royal jelly, spices, sweets, doughnuts (beignets)
• flowers, clothes (from modern cheap chic to the still obviously popular shapeless 'housedresses' and big warm knickers), leather goods, tools, knives, African art, sewing notions, handicrafts, chair mending, CDs and DVDs, boules, umbrellas
• radiators, furniture, table cloths, double glazing, rugs, lawn mowers, second hand jumble and antiques.

The weekly markets have all of this and more:

• Covered market every Saturday in La Rochelle
• Street market every Thursday and Saturday in Niort
• Street market (including small livestock in front of the Halle) every Tuesday in Coulonges

Smaller markets have local produce and some of the other stalls

• 2nd Monday of each month in Moncoutant
• 4th Monday of each month in La Chataigneraie
• 1st Wednesday of each month in Mauzé
• 2nd Sunday of each month in L'Absie (the one in September is three times the size of normal and includes lots of antiques/bric à brac)

Farmers' Market

• Every Sunday in the summer at Pescalis (6 miles away) from 10am to 1pm. Small but all focussed on the same thing,,, FOOD!!
• Delicious local produce and some interesting speciality stalls - Ostrich pâté?!