The Castries Market on Jeremie Street is the most colourful place in the city and the heart of its trading life. Inside the old orange-brick hall you find piles of dasheen, breadfruit, soursop, mangoes, hot peppers in glass jars, vanilla sticks, bay leaf bundles, and stacks of Saint Lucian cocoa balls. The vendors, mostly older women, are happy to let you sniff, prod, and ask what to do with anything you do not recognise.
Saturday morning is the day: farmers come in from villages all over the island, the place fills up with shoppers, and you can have a plate of saltfish and green fig (the local breakfast) at one of the small kitchens along the back. The adjacent craft market is rather more touristy but stocks decent woven baskets and rum samples.