Today, so far, has been a "nothing" day -- routine, normal, boring -- and that's okay! Got up this morning, walked over to the neighborhood farmers'/flea market (Marche d'Aligre), stopped on the way for a croissant and coffee, watched people pass by on their way to and from the market -- just a lazy, take-my-time, morning.
Meandered through the flea market looking for a "treasure" I couldn't pass up -- apparently, it wasn't there today. I don't know about the rest of France yet, but Paris is madly in "love" with books -- there must have been 10-15 vendors with over a thousand books between them and people were actively buying them. Obviously mostly written in French, the variety stretched from paperback romantic novels to books 150-200 years old -- and everything in between -- content ranged from novels, poetry, scientific, travel, economics, religious, old cookbooks, art, military and more. Interesting thing is, this is not unusual -- book sellers are all over the place -- farmers' markets, the Left Bank, permanent stalls along the Seine, and just randomly set-up along the streets -- there have to be fifty thousand books for sale at any given time on the street of Paris -- just mind-boggling! Someone who had a "passion" for books would either think they had "died and gone to heaven" or they'd have a nervous breakdown trying to decide where to shop and what to buy.
Wandered back to the farmers' market area and took my time looking -- shopping for the best looking produce at the best prices -- there's quite a bit of "price-fixing" going on so I think people mostly tend to focus on quality which does vary quite a bit. Ended up with a shopping bag of mushrooms, zucchini, peppers and potatoes -- basics for dinner this week. I'm typically getting enough produce to last me for two to three days and then it's back to a different market to restock.
Spent some time last night and this afternoon plotting out the next leg of my journey once I leave Paris. People in Europe take summer vacations extremely seriously -- booking lodging months in advance -- often selling out all of the rooms in a given area weeks in advance -- last night, (May 07), I got the last apartment in a town I want to visit for June 14th (a Monday) -- like I said, they take their vacations seriously!
I leave Paris the middle of June, heading south -- planning on taking my time visiting chateaus and wine tasting -- have the entire Loire Valley of wineries to sample and only two to three days to do it -- talk about stressing out!
Trying to avoid hotels, and instead, spend my nights in chateaus or older historic/architecturaly interesting buildings. One of the places I've booked is called La Tour Beauvoir -- it's a four-sided tower, built of stone in the 1100's for royalty and then turned into a prison around 1250 (with authentic dungeons) and serving in that capacity for that area of France until just after World War II (apparently with relatively little remodeling from the 1200's) -- they have three to four rooms they rent out to travelers.
From there I move on to a small beach resort, I'le de Rey, for a week of lounging around in the sun and wine tasting (are you picking-up on a theme here?) A little worried that by the time I'm back in Colorado Springs, I'll have either turned into an obnoxious "wine snob" or will never want to drink the stuff again in my life! Oh well, at least getting there will be fun!
It's time to stop writing and get back to my "nothing" day! I don't want to miss anything!
