We visited Carcassonne's La Bastide town centre. We were surprised that most of it was closed. It was Monday. It was August. This medium-sized town reportedly has two million visitors a year, most of them during the summer months. But independent shop owners in the town centre consider summer to be the perfect time for them to take their own vacations. For several weeks. Plus they always close on Mondays ... and Sundays, even during the peak tourist season. Fair enough. But then these same shopkeepers complain to the local media the rest of the year that they do not have sufficient trade. They blame edge-of-town shopping malls. But these malls serve their customers by opening daily and for longer hours. So we felt moved to comment.
This episode is also available as a blog post: http://findinglanguedoc.com/carcassonne-france-having-a-lovely-time-wish-more-shops-were-open/
We are Ted & Jemima. We moved from the UK to France in 2018. We have a web site called Finding Languedoc ... which is where we now live.
