You knew we had to visit the market.....
These are hazelnuts. I really wanted to get some closeups, but I am always careful to not get between any potential purchasers and the merchandise...... Aren't the husks cool?
I like the prev better, but wanted to show you the signs.
Mirabelles are tiny little yellow cherry-sized plums. "Raisin" is grape, so those are muscat grapes, and, yes, those are really nectarines. Maybe brugnon is a variety, like mirabelle is a variety of plum......... "Jaune" is yellow -- these have yellow flesh rather than white.
I spotted this rather large bear in a second-story window. The sign says "English Tea Company"..........
We had read that skills and talents in production of fine chocolate arrived in France with people fleeing the Spanish Inquisition. A number of these people settled in Basque country; the guidebooks said excellent hot chocolate was available in Bayonne.
We perused windows. One of us (not moi, in this case) read reviews.
We arrived here.
Glass-topped tables with fine lace, menus, and lots of information. Baiona is Basque for Bayonne.
Welcoming translations.
Isn't this the cutest?
I mean, you know I don't generally do cute, but -- really, the napkins, the sugar, the whipped cream?
I am not a hot-chocolate drinker. (An unfortunate incident with chocolate ice cream when I was five, which made me and the two neighbor boys all sick, put me permanently off chocolate ice cream. Somehow hot chocolate also went into that category. I'm fine with all other preparations of chocolate I've tried, but just don't care for hot chocolate or chocolate ice cream.)
This is why I have tea, when there is hot chocolate available.
This hot chocolate, however, was really rather good (you know I had to try it, Just In Case), and if I lived where it was readily available, I might develop a taste for it. Yum.
Moving along.
More and more chocolate...........
A visit to the grocery. This is yogurt. Speaking of the cutest.......
"Fraise" is strawberry, and "framboise" is raspberry.
Bread for the train ride to Carcassonne.
One last look at the most excellent hotel-room view we'd have on this trip......
A closeup of the bridge lights.
One last look at the Adour.
My daughter's take on this morning can be found here.
In order to facilitate chronological traverse of these posts, here is a link to the post that comes after this one.
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3 comments:
Wow. Just wow! You definitely have a knack for capturing a lot of what otherwise goes unnoticed. Love it! I'm glad you tried the hot chocolate. :)
Blush. :-) Thanks.
I think that taking pics has made me a much better "looker."
Sometimes people say taking pics distances them from an experience, but I am positive that, for me, it is the opposite. When I'm thinking of what I can make into a picture, I really LOOK........
I, too, am glad I tried the hot chocolate. :-)
Since so much of the focus of this trip was on food (especially the variety and particular local-ness of the food), I had made up my mind to go with that flow, at least most of the time. I wasn't going to eat eels, or lampreys (!!), and I am not sure I would have tried the tripe (I'm told it was the creepy look of it, rather than the taste or texture that was offputting)............
That said -- you can pretty much always get me to at least taste chocolate......... :-)
You know, now that I think about it... same here - taking pictures and blogging has definitely made me much more observant.
I enjoyed this post just as much the second time! :)
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