Mercat Setmanal de Roses (Weekly Market)
Every Tuesday morning the central area around the Plaça de Catalunya in Roses transforms into a sprawling open-air market where local farmers, fishermen's wives and artisan producers set up stalls that stretch for several blocks. It is the most honest, lived-in window into everyday Empordà life you will find in the region.
What to buy and eat
The food section is the heart of the market: look for the stall selling anchovies from L'Escala cured in the traditional Empordà style — salt-packed, rust-red and intensely flavoured, sold by weight in ceramic pots. Alongside them you'll find wild mushrooms from the Pyrenean foothills, local honey from the Cap de Creus scrubland, and fat Padrón peppers from nearby market gardens.
A cluster of stalls near the church sell pa de pagès — the dense, crusty Catalan country loaf — alongside coca de recapte, a flatbread topped with roasted vegetables and salt cod that makes a perfect picnic base. Pair it with a wedge of aged Garrotxa goat's cheese and you have one of the great cheap lunches of Catalonia.
Beyond the food stalls
The non-food section offers linen tablecloths, espadrilles, ceramic tiles painted with Catalan motifs, and a changing cast of secondhand book and vinyl dealers who set up near the fountain. It is not a tourist trap market — prices are local, haggling is acceptable on the bric-a-brac stalls, and most vendors speak Catalan first.
Arrive before 10 am for the best produce selection; by noon the fishmongers have sold out and the vegetable stalls are packing up. The market wraps up entirely by 2 pm.
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