Brocante, Brocante, Brocante!

If it's Sunday, it's must be flea market day. While most of France sleeps in after a late Saturday night, antique dealers and collectors are on the hunt at an early hour. The market in Bordeaux takes place every Sunday morning, starting before it's light, with vendors packing up when the noon church bells start ringing.

While Bordeaux is a lovely city, and a UNESCO World Heritage site, the Place Meyard, where the market takes place is a rather seedy area. An ethnic melting pot that attracts upscale and homeless alike. Every visit I have made in the last ten years has been marked by the crazy guy who tells his tale of woe from the top of his lungs to the taunts of nearby vendors. He is obviously a fixture.

The nuts and bolts of the market are the vendors and their inventories. Today there was more junk than usual, but a nearby, three day fair may have pulled some dealers who would normally be at the show. I did score four wicker cafe chairs, a wonderful crown, transferware plates, and a shell frame to list just a few items.

Back Home in France

After a week on the road visiting Normandy, Loire, and Paris, it's nice to be home. It was raining when we left Paris and quite cool. After driving two hours south, the sun broke through and it was much warmer.

It was really nice to be back at the house. Jim and Sally, my partners here, are here for the first time in a couple of years so we are spending some time catching up. Weather has been warm and we have had dinners out in the garden with our neighbors up the lane. Unusual for October. The vendage is well under way. The narrow roads are clogged with trucks filled with grapes, or with the the waste left after the grapes are crushed. They dump the waste back in the vineyards to be turned in for mulch. The air is filled with the smell of fermenting grapes.

We are looking forward to some serious antique shopping this weekend. The Grand Brocante in Rauzan is this weekend and that is always a great show. Let's hope the weather holds!

Jambon et Brocate

Ok, Fall in Paris can mean many things; Fashion Week, the running of the Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp, the International Auto Show, or the Jambon et Brocate. Jambon is ham, in all it's wonderful guises, and brocante is literally; used household goods (ANTIQUES!!!!) When you put the two together, you have a two week show (twice a year) in a Parisian suburb. You can walk the aisles searching for the perfect champagne bucket to the smell of roasting pork. Only the French would think of putting these two together.

I love this show because the variety and quality of goods is fabulous, but the prices, oh la la! I did find some country hand-loomed linen corn sacks, and Patti scored a table cloth out of the same material that is 30 feet long. There were three of us, and we were loaded down as the got on the train to return to Paris.

Honfleur, Normandy and now Paris

We stayed two nights in lovely Honfleur. Tall, narrow buildings line the waterfront. People were taxed on the width, not the height of the buildings so they went up quite high. The town is at least 1,000 years old, and somehow escaped the bombing during World War II.

We all drove down the coast to the American Cemetery across from Omaha Beach. The scope of the landing expedition is hard to take in. Walking up the cliffs to the old German embankments, you realize a life was lost every foot. If isn't an easy hike and hard to imagine doing it under enemy fire.

On the drive to Paris, we made a stop at Giverny, to take another look at Monet's garden. Lovely even on the first of October. Nice lunch in a small cafe, and no one mentioned the dead mouse under the next table.

Getting into to Paris wasn't too eventful. Just imagine, Louis in the front seat, not able to see the map; my two friends, husband and the dog in the back. It's nice when you are merging into traffic, that is coming at you from all directions, and everyone has an opinion on which way to go. The good news is we found the hotel, and I am still married.

Today we did a small vide grenier and the Jambon et Brocante....more on those later.

Chinon and the Loire

We are experiencing beautiful, sunny, warm weather. Very unfrench-like. It's great to return to the Loire Valley and show it to my husband and friends who have never been there under ideal weather conditions. We ate lunch outside in the square today, and last nights dinner as well.

Chinon is a lovely town, tucked in the shadow of an towering chateau fortress. When I was here two years ago, other than the best tartare du boeuf I've ever had, I remember walking through the ruins of the chateau. No roof, crumbling walls, exposed fireplaces. This is the place that the young Joan of Arc met the French King Henry II, to implore him to take back France from the British. Today, there is much activity in Chinon. There is a roof, walls are being rebuilt, and they have added an elevator to get people from the village to the chateau. When we walked up to the elevator, the sign asked us to please understand, but it was not operating due to work. My friends husband pushed the button, the door opened, and up we went. Pas probleme.

The best part of the 16th Century hotel we are staying in? I can see the tower and ramparts of the chateau as I lie in bed. My least favorite part? Fourth floor, no elevator here.

On the Road....

We decided with the weather so nice, a road trip was in order. Heading south to St Jean de Luz is a pretty quick trip, only 2.5 hours from home. Lovely and mild, sunny with a gentle breeze made the choice perfect.

Our first stop was in Espelette the town famous for the pimments. They start harvesting in August, and finish sometime in November. Many of the homes in the village are hung with long strings of peppers. When they were allowed to add the AOC to the peppers, the town's prominence shot up, as well as the economic well being.

St Jean de Luz sits on the French side of the Spanish border. All the signs are in French and Basque, shops are filled with espadrilles (which I can never pass up), berets, fabulous striped fabrics, and chocolates. Our hotel was directly on the beach, with views of the whole bay.

We had a great meal in a local find near the covered market. I had grilled squid, and we all split an interesting assortment of tapas.

The Most Prolific Fig Tree in France

Autumn is always a favorite time to return to France. The apple trees are heavy with fruit, grapes are ripe, pomegranates weigh down the branches in our garden. Then there is the fig tree. We used to have two fig trees, but they so shaded the garden we took one out. The remaining tree gets pruned back every winter, but grows so large, and bears so many figs that it is almost a nuisance. I can't share them with friends or neighbors, because they all have fig trees. I loved making cherry jam in the spring, but the thought of spending hours making fig jam doesn't thrill me. With each breath of wind and or rain shower, figs rain down on the terrace, the stones, causing fig "poop" to stick to the bottom of our shoes.

Then there is Sally, who mooches about looking for the perfect fig to eat. I have no idea how figs affect dogs, but she seems none the worse for wear.

This is Monday, a quiet day for antiques but we had a great weekend shopping. A big yellow tian bowl, and the largest confit pot I've ever had were among the finds.