Street markets
Monday - Besse
Tuesday - there no longer is a market in Condat
Wednesday - Egliseneuve / Salers / & 2nd & 4th Wednesday of the month Riom-ès-Montagnes
Thursday - Champs sur Tarrantaine
Friday - Murat / Champiex
Saturday - Riom-ès-Montagnes / Issoire (best local market) / Bort-les-Orgues
Sunday - Lanobre / Clermont city centre antiques market and nearby flea market

Bakery note: The lower bakery’s bread is excellent and our first choice. The upper bakery is reliable. The Egliseneuve bakery sells a range of bread and some patisserie. The bakery in St Amandin is open on a Monday.
Bread: a large, ordinary loaf is just called a “pain”, pronounced pan - ask for un pain, deux pains, etc.. Baguette, parisienne and ficelle (string) are progressively thinner. The five blobs with one in the middle is a marguerite (daisy), the stick with lethal spikes (good for self defence) is an épi (an ear, like an ear of wheat), a ring is a couronne. Rye bread (pain de siegle) is often quite hard and may be intentionally sour. Pain de campagne and pain meule are more substantial, perhaps made with stone ground flour. Épeautre is spelt, a type of triticale. Names vary in other regions.

Cheese note: “fermier”, produced by hand on the farm, has more taste than the creamery made “laitier”. Cantal is a hard cheese a bit like cheddar, “jeune” is mildest, “entre deux” is middling and “vieux” strongest. We prefer the vieux. The best place to buy Cantal and St. Nectaire is at Parpaliex. Go up through Chanterelle, round Le Bac, turn left, go along the lane for about a mile, through the untidy farm on both sides. La Montagne de Parpaliex is a large farm on the right, on a ridge. Go into the yard on the right and into their little shop. A St. Nectaire costs about €12 and is good as you can get. Their Cantal is sold by the kilo. They also generally have butter, cream, eggs, etc..
Raymond, the cheese man at Egliseneuve market on a Wednesday has excellent Fourme d’Ambert (a blue from east of here) but does not usually sell Gaperon.

The Department of Cantal has more appellation cheeses than any other department, ten I think. Most often seen Auvergne cheeses are Cantal, Salers, St Nectaire, two blues - Fourme d'Ambert and stronger Bleu d'Auvergne - and the delectable but little known Gaperon which is made with pepper and garlic but does need to be ripe. Bleu de Trizac, Murol and the unusual mild, soft, blue Carré d'Aurillac are lesser known & worth trying too. Tome is a generic type (or can be young Cantal) as is Montagne which may be 25% fat content as against 40 - 45%. You may also find other local cheeses such as Bleu des Neiges and many types of goats' cheese.
People generally cut the rind off, except for Gaperon and cheeses eaten very young. St Nectaire rind is best removed, some enthusiasts like Cantal rind, often cutting it off then eating it last!

In charcuteries you will find local air dried sausages and hams (jambon sec / de montagne, cooked ham is called jambon blanc or jambon de Paris).

Wild boar (sanglier), venison (chevreuil from roe deer, cerf from a red stag, biche from a red hind), hare (lièvre) and other game is often on menus in autumn, as are wild mushrooms. It’s fun, good exercise and a lot cheaper to find your own.

Opening hours

Sundays in Condat: the butcher, bakers and Casino for groceries are open to noon but mostly shut on Monday. The same shops open on Bank Holidays, including Christmas morning.
In summer, Shopi also opens on a Sunday and sometimes Casino on a Monday.

Typically, shops open 8 am to noon and 2 p.m. to 6 or 7 p.m. Bakeries may open and close earlier. Post Offices close at the last posting time, generally between 3 and 4.30 p.m..
There is usually a shop open somewhere, bakers, grocers even hotels staggering their closing days and holidays.

But be warned, by the time you finish that leisurely breakfast and get on the road, whatever it is you're going to see may be shut for lunch. For example, the cable car from Super Besse used to close from 11.30 am to 2 p.m. We know a café that shuts for lunch. The major electrical retailer Conforama does not open until 10 am then closes again from noon to 2 (“one must eat” they explained). Chez SNCF you can find Left Luggage firmly locked when your train departs.
It's not always easy to fathom. Shops that close on Mondays may open if Monday’s a public holiday.

Banks open Tuesday to Saturday (except for some city centre banks that open Monday to Friday).

Bank Holidays - jours fériés or jours de fête
New Year’s Day - 1 January
Easter Sunday & Monday (24 & 25 April 2011)
Labour Day - 1 May (a Sunday in 2011)
Victory 1945 / VE Day (Sunday 8 May 2011)
Ascension Day (forty days after Easter, Thursday 2 June 2011)
The Monday after Pentecost (7 Sundays after Easter, Monday 13 June in 2011). Officially abandoned in 2004, but widely taken as a holiday)
Bastille Day - 14 July which is a Thursday in 2011
Assumption (always 15 August which is a Monday in 2011)
All Saints Day (1 November which is a Tuesday in 2011)
Armistice 1918 / Remembrance Day (11 November which is a Friday in 2011)
Christmas Day (a Sunday in 2011, many shops open in the morning)

see http://www.linternaute.com/savoir/agenda/jours_feries.shtml
and for public holidays around the world: http://www.jours-feries.com/

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