Cours Saleya market
You might be surprised to the answer to the question “What part of Nice do I enjoy the best ? It’s not the Promenade Des Anglais which can be tacky and scabrous in the middle section where peddlers and worse gather. It’s not the Chateau which has a lovely park with breathtaking views but not much else. It’s not the Negresco Hotel which I always visit but once is enough.
No, it’s the flower market in the old town called the Cours Saleya.
In the sixties my parents rented a flat in Villefranche called Les Oliviers.
In the morning my father would drive down to the market and buy flowers and food.
My mother loved her markets.
Every Friday even when she moved to upmarket St Johns Wood she would go to Dalston to the market at Ridley Road.
One section of the market sells flowers and the famous flower festival takes place there but it’s now mainly food.
In an age of homogenised supermarket shopping there is something reassuringly independent about these stallholders that sell their produce so abundantly and colourfully displayed.
There is the banter between the costermongers and their rosy, florid faces which Rousseau might have painted. Above all the fruit and vegetables are of such high quality.
My favourite stall is run by Therese. I expected to see her jolly husband but she told me he is tired and sick and can no longer work. So her daughter and son-in -law, the next generation, are now helping here.
She calls everyone “Cherie”? but I have been upgraded to “Mon amour”. At the stall opposite a handsome middle-aged woman with raven hair and a gleaming smile once sold me a plastic salt cellar with herbs. I return every year to replenish my stock and there is much banter along the lines “I hope I am not your best customer “
There at the back – tourist tend to sit on the terrace – right wing sympathizers plot.
At the end are a couple of cafes where after a shop you can enjoy a coffee or something for “the inner man” in the sunshine.
No visitor should miss this institution of Nice
