The road back from the art museum to St. Catherine was Rue des Trois Conils. If you click on the pic to embiggen, you can see that the banners over the street show three rabbits. Given that "cony" is a word that I've seen in older British novels to mean "rabbit," and given that I can't find a translation for conil (which sounds almost exactly like "cony", in French), I'm guessing that conil is older French for rabbit, and that the word migrated in to English with William the Conqueror.
Note blue sign on building at right -- this is the way street signs are done, in France.
We decided we were tired of researching our restaurants so carefully for unique local choices, and picked Karl on the Place du Parliament, two block east of our hotel (our little street led right to it).
Karl has a large selection of delectibles to choose from, including many vegetable choices.
Look! This is the first ice cube I'd seen since I got off the airplane!
The ice was for this, which was very nice indeed.
My choice for supper was this. All very good, with the exception of bland and boring olives.
An apple and red fruits crumble. "Red fruits" can be strawberry, raspberry, red currants, and I'm not sure what else. We saw "red fruits" used quite frequently on menus, rather than naming the individual fruits. That's cream, with some vanilla and sugar, in the pitcher.
Isn't it cute? In its little wooden boat? It was good, too, but not as good as the foodie's version.
Karl is about two blocks from the Mirror. You know we went on over.
The Mirror ... is totally excellent. The reflections -- excellent. The juxtaposition of stately buildings and running/playing/soaking-wet children -- excellent. The way it draws everyone in to participate -- excellent. The way it displays universal human truths ... beyond excellent.
We watched it for a long time, on several occasions.
The population interacting with the Mirror was quite diverse, which quietly underlay the Universal Human Truths aspects.
Fascinating, the way nearly everyone seemed to approach it as did others of their age group. Toddlers were very cautious about crossing the drain at the edge.
We saw this little guy go across multiple times. When by himself, he was very careful, but with a parent's hand, he cruised across as though it was no barrier at all.
Bigger kids did a lot of splashing. Lying down, sitting, running. You could watch one kid discover that running in a certain way would let you maximize splash with every step, and then continue watching as other kids that age observed the new idea, picked it up, and ran splashily, too. It was very interesting to see the social learning rippling out, as more kids saw other kids doing something new and cool.
Of course adults were involved, too.
Parents followed babies.
Kid-less adults walked through.
We only saw a few dogs, and those, like the toddlers, were cautious, but were reassured by familiar people. Love the splashes coming up behind her feet....
Zillions of photos were taken.
As you would guess, kids did *not* want to leave.
Babies headed for the hills (and struggled, when picked up); bigger kids said "But *I* want to stay *here*!" (turning and running in the opposite direction). (That last was in English, in an English accent, and became one of our favorite quotes from the trip.)
One more image before we leave the riverside.
We'd been told by a former Coast Guard member that there were WWII berths for submarines here.
We're guessing he was talking about these. This is a tight crop of a lightened version of the upper left corner of the above.
Back to our oh-so-convenient hotel to pack up for our trip to La Rochelle.
Our favorite tv station -- the tourist channel! It was on tourist tv that we first learned about the Mirror.
We brought home some images advertising other entertainment delights in Bordeaux.
The white all-caps words just under the golf bag say "all the pleasures"......
(wondering what, exactly, is "a golf," and, what is "a parcours"..........)
See my daughter's take on this excellent day here.
To facilitate chronological traverse of the France posts, here is a link to the next post.
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2 comments:
Lovely photos, as always! Apricot nectar - LOVE it. I happen to have some in the pantry. :)
Was that an English Bulldog? Too cute.
Thank you. :-)
I have had some apricot nectar that was ... rather pale ... but this was delicious.
My dear! Non, non, non! A FRENCH bulldog, bien sur!
;-) ;-) ;-)
We saw a lot of French bulldogs, including one outrageously cute little dog at Leonardo's last house. Seriously, a major contender for Cutest Dog Evar! And I've had corgi puppies. :-) :-)
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