Festivals and events in Centre-Val de Loire on 29-30 August 2026: Bourges takes to the boats in its market-garden marshes for the Saint-Fiacre weekend, while Aigurande feasts on crayfish and Amboise runs from Bach to Bacchus.
Boats between the vegetable plots, at summer's end. Bourges opens its market-garden marshes this weekend, on 29 and 30 August, when the city honours the patron saint of its growers. The Fête des Marais takes to the water over 29-30/08, while Aigurande feasts on crayfish and Amboise runs from Bach to Bacchus.
Boats on the market-garden marshes of Bourges
On the Quai des Maraîchers, the Fête des Marais de Bourges fills both days of the weekend, Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 August. The city celebrates a heritage very few French towns still possess: market-garden marshes, among the last in France alongside those of Amiens and Saint-Omer.
The date is no accident.
The festival is traditionally held on the weekend of Saint-Fiacre, the patron saint of market gardeners, which brings it back to the very end of August each year.
The programme unfolds at water level. Boat trips wind between the plots, themed guided tours pick apart the flora and fauna, and activities retrace the history and richness of these cultivated marshes.
Apart from Amiens and Saint-Omer, France's larger towns have lost this kind of landscape. Bourges keeps its own alive, and gives it this end-of-summer celebration.
Crayfish in Aigurande, brass bands in Contres
In the same marshes on Saturday, the Ronde des Marais sends its runners off from the Jardin des Prés Fichaux, an 8 km race for adults and children's runs from 800 metres to 2.4 km. Southern Berry answers with food: in Aigurande, the Festival de l'Écrevisse runs tastings and a popular fête until Sunday around a crustacean French gastronomy ranks among its noblest, in the tradition of the Confrérie des Maîstres Escrevissiers Berry Marche, while the Foire Bio de Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre gathers more than 80 exhibitors at the Parc Boulade, as it has every last weekend of August since 1976.
Music lovers have two addresses.
Around Amboise, the Quinte et Sens Festival, subtitled “From Bach to Bacchus” and carried by the Quinte et Sens, Musique, Patrimoine et Vignoble association, pairs classical concerts with wine tastings and heritage until Sunday 30. In Épernon, in the Eure-et-Loir, the Festival Lyrique brings operas, operettas and lyrical shows to the Salle de la Savonnière, with creations written for young audiences by the Opéra-ci, Opéra-là company.
On Saturday night, two events play their last card of the summer. The Nocturnes de l'Abbaye de Thiron-Gardais close their cycle of evenings, held every Saturday of July and August in the abbey gardens, with a free open-air concert, a night craft market and a torchlight procession followed by fireworks. In Villaines-les-Rochers, a village famed for its basket-weaving, Oh La Villaines wraps up two evenings of rap, electro, reggae, rock and French chanson, an independent festival run by volunteers and proudly home-made.
In the Parc Pasteur, in the heart of Orléans, Un Autre Monde alternates two stages of world music until Saturday, from rock to cumbia by way of afrobeat and Oriental sounds, a free gathering created in 2013 by the DEFI association as heir to the DEFI'stival. In Contres, the Festival Les Arts dans la Rue holds the Place Javelet across both days with street shows, blues and rock concerts, magic, brass bands and a night market, a formula set up in 2009 by three friends.
Entry is free in Orléans, in Neuvy-Saint-Sépulchre and in Contres.