Marché Hebdomadaire d'Amélie-les-Bains
Every Tuesday morning the riverside promenade and central square of Amélie-les-Bains fill with stallholders selling Catalan specialities, local cheeses, honey from the Vallespir hills and the kind of tomatoes that actually taste of summer. It's a proper working market, not a tourist showcase.
What to buy and eat
Look for rousquilles — the anise-flavoured ring biscuits that are the signature sweet of the Vallespir — sold by bakers who still make them in wood-fired ovens in nearby Arles-sur-Tech. Alongside them you'll find mel i mató (fresh curd cheese with honey), dried ceps from the Pyrenean forests and strings of the long, sweet Catalan peppers called pebrot de cirereta.
A cheese stall near the fountain usually stocks Brebis des Pyrénées, the firm, nutty sheep's milk cheese made in the mountains above the valley. Buy a wedge and a baguette from the adjacent baker and you have the best picnic in the Roussillon.
The atmosphere and the locals
The market runs from around 8 am to 1 pm and is busiest between 9 and 11 am when local retirees, hikers stocking up and Catalan farmers selling direct all converge. A couple of stalls sell freshly pressed peach and apricot juice in season — queue up; it's worth it.
A small bar on the square opens early and serves café amb llet (coffee with hot milk in the Catalan style) alongside pan amb tomàquet — bread rubbed with ripe tomato and olive oil. Pull up a plastic chair and watch the market do its thing.
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