Alès Christmas Market

On the edge of the Cévennes, Alès pulls out all the stops in December. On Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, sixteen log chalets bring together craftspeople and producers from 2 to 24 December 2026; in 2025, an ice rink settled in on the forecourt of Le Cratère and a little train ran between the lights of the town centre. Alès Christmas market mixes Cévennes crafts, treats from chestnut country and a whole string of family activities, in a town that has swapped its coal and silk past for festive bustle. In 2025, on the Ermitage hill, fireworks crowned the most eagerly awaited Saturday night of the month.

The chalets on Place de l’Hôtel de Ville

The main market is held in the centre, on Place de l’Hôtel de Ville, where life in Alès goes on all year round. For the 2025 edition, around twenty chalets built from logs housed designers, craftspeople and small producers selling gift ideas, from jewellery to hand-turned objects. The size stays reasonable, which makes for a pleasant stroll: you go from one stand to the next without elbowing your way through, and you have time to talk to the stallholders about what they make. Wednesdays and weekends bring their share of entertainment, with Father Christmas there every day from 11am to 6pm to listen to children’s wishes and pose for photos.

Around the square, the town centre provides the setting. On Place Henri Barbusse, a twelve-metre Christmas tree made up of one hundred and thirty-three small fir trees lights up at nightfall and serves as a glowing landmark. In 2025, musical parades, led by floats and mascots, made their way up the pedestrian streets to the town hall on several Saturdays in December. This festive atmosphere owes a lot to the history of Alès, capital of the Cévennes shaped by mining and silk. The Mine Témoin, dug into the hillside, keeps alive the memory of the miners and the coal that made the town’s fortune; the old silkworm farms and mulberry trees recall the time when silkworm breeding fed the whole region. The chemist Jean-Baptiste Dumas, a local boy, in fact brought Pasteur to Alès in 1865 to study silkworm disease.

As you walk the streets, you still come across traces of these two successive lives: old market halls given a new use, handsome façades built in the golden age of silk, a Vauban fort that recalls the town’s past as a stronghold. It’s this mix of old stones and working-class memory that gives the market its character, far from a picture-postcard set put up for the occasion. Shopkeepers in the centre join in, with decorated windows and events shared with the town, so the celebrations quickly spill out from Place de l’Hôtel de Ville into the surrounding pedestrian streets.

Treats at Alès Christmas market

Cévennes cooking has a big place on the stalls, and that’s the whole point of tasting local produce on the spot. The Cévennes chestnut reigns supreme: hot chestnuts at the corner of a chalet, chestnut spread, flour and sweets made from the fruit that long served as the mountain people’s “bread tree”. Pélardon, a small PDO goat’s cheese with a melting texture, is eaten on a piece of bread with a glass of Cévennes wine. The Cévennes sweet onion, the area’s other PDO pride, comes candied or as a condiment, next to jars of honey from the garrigue and the chestnut groves. The nearby orchards of Le Vigan supply the reinette, a rough-skinned apple with a hazelnut flavour that keeps all winter. And when the cold bites, spiced mulled wine goes from hand to hand; if you want to make it at home, a good mulled wine recipe with cinnamon and orange is all you need to bring back the atmosphere.

These products are more than stall curiosities: they tell the story of a mid-mountain region where chestnuts fed families for centuries, where goats graze the garrigue and where orchards climb as far as Le Vigan. Taking the time to taste a matured pélardon or leaving with a jar of chestnut spread means taking a piece of the Cévennes home in your bag. The food artisans at the market often work with farms in the neighbouring valleys, and they’re happy to tell you where what you buy comes from: a cheese’s ageing, a forgotten apple variety, a harvest of heather honey.

• Cévennes chestnut PDO: roasted chestnuts, spread, flour and sweets, the mountain people’s bread tree served every possible way.
• Pélardon PDO, a melting goat’s cheese to enjoy on a piece of bread, with a glass of local wine.
• Cévennes sweet onion PDO, candied or as a condiment, and chestnut grove honey to take home.
• Le Vigan reinette, a winter apple with a hint of hazelnut, grown in the nearby orchards.
• Spiced mulled wine, served steaming hot to warm the evenings spent among the chalets.

Ice rink, little train and fireworks

Alès market isn’t limited to the chalets, and that’s what makes it a full day out with children. In 2025, on the forecourt of Le Cratère, right in the centre, a synthetic ice rink was open all month: skates provided, low price, enough to keep the youngest busy after a tour of the stalls. A little Christmas train ran a loop through the illuminated streets of the town centre, handy for resting your legs while admiring the decorations. A funfair on the Champ de Foire completed the picture for those looking for rides. The big event remained the fireworks set off from the Ermitage hill on a Saturday evening in mid-December, which brought the people of Alès together around the lit-up town.

The market is free: you only pay for what you eat or take home. In 2026, it runs from 2 to 24 December on Place de l’Hôtel de Ville; for the 2025 edition, it ran from 3 to 24 December, with the ice rink and the funfair continuing into early January. The 2026 opening hours and programme (ice rink, little train, fireworks, funfair) are still to come. By train, Alès station is on the line to Nîmes, about forty minutes away, and drops you a short distance from the centre, so a car-free day out is quite doable. By car, several car parks ring the town centre, but spaces are scarce at weekends in December: arriving early or aiming for the late afternoon, when the lights take over, is the best option. Allow one to two hours to go round the chalets, more if you add the ice rink and an afternoon snack.

With much of the town centre pedestrianised, the stroll is stress-free with children, pushchair included, even if you have to cope with the Saturday crowds in December. In 2025, the Cratère ice rink charged a single price of two euros with skates provided, so you could give it a go without breaking the bank. For a stay, Alès has hotels in the centre and rooms in the old farmhouses nearby, handy if you want to follow up with a walk in the Cévennes the next day. Shops and restaurants in the town centre stay open during the festivities, so you can break up the visit with a meal in the warm before heading back out into the lights.

What to see around Alès

Alès deserves a longer visit beyond the chalets. The Mine Témoin takes you underground through more than a kilometre of galleries and tells the story of the miners’ daily lives, an unusual outing that keeps you dry between two showers. The Musée du Colombier and Saint-Jean-Baptiste cathedral, in the old town, show another side of the town. A few kilometres away, the Bambouseraie d’Anduze spreads out its exotic forest and Laotian village, an unexpected sight in the Cévennes, while the Gardon winds between the hills towards its gorges. The Cévennes valleys, Mont Aigoual and the Cévennes National Park open up hiking country and big landscapes to the north, once the festive season is over.

Its location also makes Alès a good base for exploring the Gard and the Hérault. Nîmes Christmas market, three quarters of an hour’s drive away, puts up its big light displays around the Roman arena. Montpellier Christmas market and its giant village deserve a full day of their own, and Avignon Christmas market, at the foot of the Palais des Papes, rounds off a festive weekend between Provence and the Cévennes.