On the drive from Bergerac airport last Thursday, we were driving around the Ste Foy ring road and saw a sign for Pineuilh market - Friday. We thought - we've not got much planned, let's have some of that! Pineuilh is a funny place; there is a centre to it, but as you drive around the Ste Foy ring road, you go in and out of the village every time you enter and leave a roundabout. There is, of course, the Leclerc hypermarket called "Grand Pineuilh", but we've never actually been to the centre of the village.
Friday morning, we went there. Well, I think calling it a market is a bit of an exaggeration - calling it a market stall would be more accurate! There was one fruit and veg stall there; a large one, to be fair, but only one. We were disappointed. I will not be changing the website or the house manual to add that market to the list!
Last year, Rick Stein started off his television series "Long Weekends" by going to Bordeaux. We like Rick, mainly because we like food, but perhaps that's another story. When he was in Bordeaux, he went to a market called Marché des Capucins - a permanent covered market just to the south of the main shopping area.
We decided to give that a go after the disappointment of Pineuilh. Well, you couldn't get two different markets. This was lively and bustling with many different stalls selling meat, fish, fruit and veg. There were speciality stalls - for instance, one selling food from Portugal - as well as stalls where you could sit down for lunch.
This place is really well worth a visit if you go to Bordeaux. It is a morning only market, so you need to be prompt.
After the market visit, we went to a restaurant that Rick visited, Le Petit Commerce, which is a really good fish restaurant not too far from the centre. When walking over there, we went through areas that we hadn't been to before and saw many nice looking restaurants: not the touristy ones which we have always struggled to avoid. Overall we had a really great day in Bordeaux.
