Foires et fêtes d'automne: get ready for feasting, fun and French food at its finest

Every season has its gastronomic pleasures in France; glamorous excess at Christmas, elegant salads in spring, the glory of fresh fruit and barbecued fish in summer. But it is hard to beat the bountiful produce of autumn.

All over the country, fêtes, foires and festivals celebrate apples and cider, pigs and pork, chestnuts, pumpkins and preserves. 

The festivities extend to funfairs, gastronomic salons, and foires d’automne, which can include almost anything from arts and crafts to innovative double glazing.

Cidre & Dragon 

Among the welter of apple and cider festivals taking place, the festival Cidre & Dragon stands out. 

There may not be many dragons lurking in France’s apple orchards, but this is a festival celebrating fantasy, meaning everyone can bring a dragon. Or dress as a dragon. Or arrive in a steampunk machine. It is a jamboree of fancy dress, and the fancier the better.

Held in the seaside resort of Merville-Franceville-Plage (Calvados, Normandy) on September 21-22, it aims to appeal to all generations – from age two to 102 – and attracts more than 100,000 visitors.

From ragged tents on the Normandy beaches emerge warriors and raggle-taggle followers silhouetted against a crowd of dragons. Some of these monsters are stationary, others move, while some are participants in costume.

As the morning rolls on, the streets fill with fantastical beings; women with blue faces, children with green hair, scary creatures with no faces or hair at all... It has a vaguely mediaeval feel but is not historically accurate; revellers seem to take their inspiration more from Tolkien and Jules Verne-style steampunk.

Needless to say, watching these amazing creatures parade through the streets requires edible reinforcement in the shape of cider, apple juice, sausages, and cheese, all of which are on sale.

There is also a market focusing on fantasy; costumes, props and accessories, books, cartoons, posters, films, temporary and permanent tattoos.

This is the place to buy a leather corset, should your heart desire such a thing.

Wooden games, strange instruments, fake sword fights, face-painting, and crafts including pottery, leatherwork and candle-making, metalwork, weaving, tile decoration, glassmaking are all to be enjoyed, along with music, dancing, and of course, drinking.

Fête du Cidre à l’Ancienne

A more traditional event takes place at Sap-en-Auge (Orne in Normandy). The Fête du Cidre à l’Ancienne on November 9-10, is organised by the Ecomusée de la Pomme au Calvados and features a range of antique agricultural machines belonging to the museum.

Perhaps the most spectacular is a massive stone mill in which apples are crushed by a rolling stone wheel turned by a patient horse walking in endless circles.

As the wheel turns, apples are tipped into the troughs causing juice to flow out. Filtered and bottled on site, the results are delicious but must be kept in the fridge and drunk quickly.

A 1950s apple-harvesting machine will be pressed into service, as will antique machines for making apple juice into cider and Calvados. A local farmers’ market featuring around 50 stands will offer tastings and local produce.

There will also be a bar, exhibitions, displays, demonstrations and games.

For anyone with a serious interest in cider, the well-signposted, 40km-long Route du Cidre in Calvados, east of Caen, is easy to follow across the countryside. It takes in beautiful villages such as Beuvron-en-Auge, where you can visit local producers and taste their cider, Calvados and Pommeau.

Fête de la Courge 

The Fête de la Courge (squashes and gourds) in Rians (Var, PACA), on October 12-13, will also attract large crowds. Market stalls groan under the weight of huge pumpkins and smaller butternut and spaghetti squash. There are also stalls selling soup and even a soup competition. Artists compete to carve the most elaborate designs on pumpkins, while small children concentrate hard as they hook toy pumpkins out of the ancient fountain.

Dating back to 1996, the fête has become a favourite date in the area, as well as the best place to buy goodies for Halloween. Treats include donkey rides and a petting farm, a children’s art exhibition, and lots of street music, dancing and feasting. Special events include la découpe de courge au sabre – cutting a squash with a sword.

As well as gastronomic celebrations, autumn funfairs (fêtes foraines) arrive in the larger cities with rides ranging from ‘vomit comets’ to hooking duckies out of a slow-running stream.

Many of them open late at the weekend, and some offer cheaper prices on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. There are sometimes weekend firework displays, too.

Foire aux Plaisirs and funfairs

The Foire aux Plaisirs d’Automne at Place des Quinconces in Bordeaux runs from October 11 to November 3. The Vogue des Marrons in Croix-Rousse, Lyon, runs throughout the last three weeks of October plus the first week of November.

Meanwhile, the Foire Haute de Morlaix runs during the second and third weeks of October. The Fête Foraine d’Automne, the Luna Park de Clermont-Ferrand at the Espace Cristal runs from mid-October to mid-November.

Le Mans and Nancy also host well-established funfairs every October. The Foire Saint-Romain on the Esplanade Saint-Gervais in Rouen (Seine-Maritime) is the second-oldest and largest funfair in France, after the springtime Foire du Trône in the 12th arrondissement of Paris.

Legend has it that in the 12th century, a dragon arrived in Rouen and terrorised the inhabitants. 

The Bishop of Rouen is supposed to have set out to kill the monster, accompanied by a condemned man whose life would be spared if the mission was successful. 

The dragon was duly slain and for centuries afterwards, right up until the French Revolution, a condemned man from Rouen was pardoned annually on All Saints’ Day.

The traditional foodie treat at the fair is croustillons, a type of doughnut. It is open from October 18 to November 17.

Belly Festival

The Fête du Ventre (translated as The Belly Festival), also in Rouen, on October 12-13, highlights food with a short supply chain. The streets will be lined with around 150 local producers.

Temptation and tastings abound with the accent on potatoes, cheese, cider, sausages and charcuterie including andouilles (made from smoked pork), watercress, jams, and dairy products.

Also look out for mustard, wine, and saffron. The organisers say they aim to showcase the crème de la crème of Normandy gastronomy and most of the stallholders wear traditional costumes. 

There will also be cookery demonstrations, street music and a miniature farm for children. This event attracts around 150,000 people.

Rouen gets down to serious business on November 8-10 with its Salon Gourmand at the Parc Expo. This year it will be constructed around three different ‘universes’: Vin & Terroirs, Chocolat & Plaisirs Sucrés, and ‘Beerdays’, which speaks for itself.

Foire à l’Andouille

If you get a taste for andouilles, you can really get stuck in to them at the Foire à l’Andouille in Vire in Calvados (Normandy) on November 1-3 in the Salle du Vaudeville. 

The foire has taken place annually for 30 years and shows no signs of slowing down.

As well as tastings, the stands run lots of competitions, quizzes and games to win prizes including vouchers for local restaurants, and there are cookery demonstrations. As well as sausages, the local produce on offer includes gin and vodka, goats’ cheese, wine, infusions, saffron, smoked ham, craft beers, nougat, chicken terrine and, of course, cider.

A lighthearted stand sells humorous vintage postcards featuring the word andouille – which in French slang means idiot, fool, or numbskull.

All weekend the town’s restaurants offer special menus featuring andouilles and other local produce.

Foires d’automne

Although fête foraines are sometimes called foires d’automne, a foire can also be an extended, glorified street market; all the usual stands plus larger ones run by big businesses selling tractors, new roofs, and solar panels, alongside hawkers selling snazzy cooking pots and winter quilts. 

The accent is on preparing for winter, so as well as bedding, firewood accoutrements and jam-making apparatus, look out for warm jackets, thick boots and large snow shovels.

The foire in Millau (Aveyron in Occitanie) on October 12-13 has an undeniably foodie flavour. Look out for an all-day barbecue, a flea market, and big dishes of aligot (mashed potatoes with cheese) flavoured with truffles.

The Grand Marché d’Automne in Nègrepelisse (Tarn-et-Garonne, Occitanie) on the third Sunday of October is a riot of pumpkins and autumn fruit. 

There will be a jam-making competition, rides in a horse and cart, bouncy castles, a treasure hunt, demonstrations of apple pressing, and a farmers’ market. There will also be dancers and musicians performing.

The Foire au Troc et aux Cochons takes place on November 2-3 in the centre of Champigny-sur-Marne in Val-de-Marne (Ile-de-France) and dates back to 1563. It includes a brocante and ‘mediaeval’ village.

Here you can watch a blacksmith or a glassblower at work, or enjoy watching jugglers, archers and knights practising their sword-fighting skills.

There are also knights in armour and jousting. Many visitors wear mediaeval costumes. You can learn to play traditional wooden games, and do a calligraphy workshop.

There is also a teaching farm for children (this is where you find the pigs) and a wide variety of workshops for all the family. 

There are also fairground rides galore, food trucks and market stalls. The ‘guess the weight of the pig’ competition culminates in a ceremonial pig-weighing.