The Place aux Herbes is the main square and the social centre of Uzès — a long, slightly irregular rectangle lined with stone arcades on two sides, with plane trees overhead and café tables spilling out underneath. It is the kind of square that makes you understand why the French built towns this way: sheltered from both sun and rain, open enough to breathe, enclosed enough to feel contained. Come here first thing in the morning for coffee, and again in the evening for a drink, and the square will feel like a completely different place each time.
On Saturday mornings the arcades fill with market stalls stretching beyond the square and into the surrounding lanes. This is a proper Provençal market — local producers, not tourist goods. Olives and tapenade from nearby farms, lavender honey, goat's cheese, fresh herbs, seasonal vegetables, flowers. It draws people from across the Gard, and by 9am it is already busy. The market has been held here for centuries; the arcades were built for exactly this purpose, to give traders and shoppers cover from the summer heat.