Day 130
When weekends arrive, it means the market is waiting, and as far as I can tell, it’s not optional. The little two-wheeled grocery pull carts invade the city, and the metro is full of people with their bags of grocery goodies. We love markets, so we were happy to join the market migration. This weekend we visited the Marche d’Aligre.
If you’re a regular market goer, you understand the allure followed by the addiction. There are flowers, yummy fresh fruits, gourmet meats and cheeses, and more mushrooms than I’d ever seen in one place.
We took a break for lunch, which was absolutely delicious. We’ve learned that in some establishments the same alcohol can have three prices. The cheapest is if you drink it while standing at the bar area, next comes drinking it in the restaurant, and the most expensive is drinking it outside in the sidewalk cafe chairs. Various restaurants may tier their drink prices differently, but that’s the most common one we’ve seen.
But even more interesting than the carbonara was the beautiful dog walking around the bar. It’s not unusual for dogs to come into restaurants with their owners, but they are usually smaller and often on a leash. This was a Golden Retriever, and he was free and friendly. He walked in and out of the restaurant, came to say hi to us, did a little begging until the waiter shooed him away. As a dog lover it was the perfect lunch.
After lunch we poked around through the flea market a bit, then went home.
Turns out we got a little turned around and didn’t go the most direct way home. But those are often the times when you make great little finds like this one. The Passage des Panoramas is an atrium covered street, the oldest covered passageway of Paris. It is located in the 2nd arrondissement between Montmartre boulevard to the North and Saint-Marc street to the south.
This adorable alleyway has a train restaurant and other tiny restaurants and shops that line this atrium covered walkway. It’s one way to eat in a sidewalk cafe while still staying warm and indoors, if that’s your thing, which is very much mine.
After this discovery we swung by the Galeries Lafayette to look at more shoes, we are in Paris after all, and this should be done as often as possible. Then we went home to cook up our St. Michel sausages and have some kind of interesting soft cheese. Great market day.