A kilometre from the French border we were amazed to see huge clusters of giant buildings advertising Buffet!! Gaz!! Supermarcats!! To put this in perspective you have to realize we'd been in the countryside for a week where the biggest buildings were castles and churches, and the stores were all the size of my bedroom closet. So of course we had to investigate.
We followed the masses and quickly realized this was the Spanish version of Costco where one could buy large quantities of everything. Except this store was about the size of Thrifty's in Sidney. ...only in North America do we think stores must be no smaller than two football fields. The other glaring difference between Supermarcat and Costco is the 'bodega' inside the front door. You know, so you can have a couple of drinks before you buy a gallon of laundry soap.
Wandering the aisles was great. There was an entire aisle of olives stuffed with anchovies. The olives stuffed with other things were in a different aisle. There was an aisle of kids flaminco dresses. An aisle of paella pans, the biggest of which wouldn't have fit in our car. There were bottles of gin, rum, scotch, and Jack Daniels that were 5 liters. FIVE LITRES! I don't think I could lift one, much less pour it. And sausages, hundreds of kinds of cured sausages of every colour and size hanging above the butcher case.
Clearly the French come here for the deals now that the EU has opened the border. Off we drove through said border, now forlorn and covered in graffiti. Lo and behold on the French side there were Supermarche's!! Buffet!! Gaz!! So do the Spanish want French deals and the French want Spanish deals?! Who knows.
On we journeyed, only to come to another shopping experience, completely different, yet completely French. One of the many things I love about Dave is his ability to get us to a town on market day. We arrived in the medieval village of Mirepoix at the perfect time to wander with the crowds and peruse the bustling stalls.
Medieval painted beams, Lagrasse
This was no regular farmer's market, this was an outdoor mall. You could do serious shopping here. Artisanal cheese and bread, wine and Morrocan spices, shoes, bras, jeans, and china by the kilogram. Yup, pile up some china and weigh and pay. Chairs, rabbits two ways, ready for the roaster or ready as a pet. Sweaters, olives, dress shirts, and mattresses.
At 12:30 precisely, everyone packs up, and off they go, leaving behind stray vegetables, the odd wooden crate, and one terrible minstrel, trying to get money from the stragglers. An hour later the town square is peaceful, and the town is deserted. Time for lunch.
View of chapel from our hotel room, "Hotel de Commerce", named after the market region, Mirepoix
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