can anyone tell me what time the market starts and ends on the Saturday.

Throughout France markets open around 8 am and begin to shut down around noon to 1 pm.

If your house or apartment is anywhere near Place des Herbes, you'll hear their trucks arriving as early as five in the morning.

If you go before the stalls open you may catch one of those uniquely French moments: a waiter from one of the cafés carrying a tray of espressos for the vendors. They sip and gossip with their neighbours as they set up their displays. Sometime later the waiter will be back to pick up the cups.

The last two times we were at that market we watched a man who sold trout. If you asked for one, he'd net it from a tank, reach for a wooden stick, and thwack it on the head. He'd clean the fish and then reach down to start a shop-vac and vacuum up the guts. The fish itself he'd pop in a clear plastic bag and hand it over with a smile.

We have never seen quite the same set-up in any other French market. We sat one Wednesday morning at a nearby café table and watched with increasing hunger. When we could no longer resist, we walked over and bought two, then went back to our house and cooked them for lunch.

Do take a look if you're there. He was in the south-west corner of the market when we were last there in 2004.

Anselm

We will. My partner loves anything to do with fish so he will love it. That is the facinationg sort of thing we look forward to in France.

Anselm: The two vendors that really stuck out in my mind are the fish/seafood vendor and the live snail vendor. The way they present the live creeping snail is quite unique.