Jour de meres

Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there, hope you all had a wonderful day (especially Jean)!

Our day began in search of a suitable Mothers Day lunch (and being Sunday, the main luncheon day in France, what a better time to celebrate than with traditional French cuisine). We headed off to a restaurant that had been recommended in the Lonely Planet, just outside of the centre of town. On our journey to lunch we visited a famous Cedar tree in France, measuring a whopping 7.5 meters around the base. After this short detour, and an anticipated walk to the restaurant for St Jacques scallops and the market-fresh poisson de jour, we came to the area our restaurant was meant to be in, but all we found was a derelict old building that wasn't serving anything but mice to the night owls.

At a loss for where to go for our Mother's Day lunch, we started to walk towards the older part of town, and heard some commotion as we turned the corner of the ancient streets. We stumbled upon the Sunday antiques market, which quickly replaced the stupor we were in after loosing our luncheon hopes. There were hundreds of stalls selling silver, pottery, paintings, locals were selling home-made sweets, old men on the corners were selling Spanish style Churros with warm dipping chocolate and children were running to their parents after spending all their pocket money on a second hand transformer and a packet of sugared lollies. Oh and a mysterious goat made an appearance wondering the markets, seemed to be enjoying itself!

We picked a little cafe in the centre of the markets and ordered what the people next to us were having, we had no idea what on earth it was (or how much it cost for that matter). We were brought out a delicious plate of home-made pork terrine with herbs, warm rice with noodles, and a French twist on tabbouleh with some eggplant dip, french-stick and of course, a good glass of wine. We must have sat out on the path of the cafe for hours watching the crowds search the market place for a treasure.

After lunch we walked around the markets, trying our best to bargain in French (unsuccessfully). The sun made an appearance especially for our walk to the end of the market. With full bellies we made our way back into the centre of town were we took a small tourist train (we were the only ones on it) through the village, unbeknown to us, the train also went into the main square filled with locals having their coffees after lunch, with the bell ringing loudly on the train as we entered the main square, all eyes were on the tourists on the train entering and interrupting everyone's Sunday lunch. A slightly uncomfortable and slow exit on the train, and three embarrassed Eime's later we ended up back in town for the slow walk back to our apartment to rest our heads for tomorrows adventure.

Bonne nuit mes amis!