Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Market Day and a Ramble

Yonks since we Ramblers had been for a walk and today was determined as
the day. In between set-off time (2:00 pm) and decision-making time (9:30 am) was market Rambling. Yes, today is market day in Buis-Les-Baronnes. You turn left out of our street (6 metres wide) into the main street (10m wide) and all is not as it was. Stalls line one side of the street and, where it is wide enough, one stall on each side. As usual, the market is filled with local produce. Snossages, cured hams and dried meat, fresh vegetables of all description, clothing, fish, footwear (Sooz bought a rather fetching pair of shoes for walking), jewellery and mattresses. Yes, the Mattress Man - or at least A mattress man was there in all his glory. This chap was counting a wad of money as we strolled past, so he seemeded to be doing well.

True to the form of the locals, we stocked up on all our provisions and went home to a wonderful lunch of paella bought from a rather debaucherous older chap who definitely had an eye on my gorgeous travelling companions (who could blame him, really?). Steph and Jen got stuck onto the buying. They are on dinner on Friday night. Boy O boy, am I looking forward to that!

After lunch we had a bit of a snooze before it was time to head off up the hill/mountain. Steph stayed home for a sleep. She has been working very hard and has a bit of a cold. She needs to catch up on some sleep. Mount St Julien dominates the town to the south of us and we have a great view of it out our windows. It has a summit that pierces the skyline and can only be described in the following terms: "craggy AS!". The trail was marked with red and white stripes or crosses that guided our way. It is part of the GR7, s walk similar to the GR4 that we encountered in Chasteuil (remember?). Up we went, higher and higher, until the valley lay very small below us. On the other side of the valley we could see the tiny village to which Dear Jude and Jenna cycled to check out a lunch restaurant yesterday. By jingoes, it did look tiny and cute from where we climbed.

The route took us to the bottom of the craggy bits, around the contour, and then on to a ridge that took us up to a spot where we could look back past the crags and down to Buis-Les-Wassername. Stupendous! Returning along a ridge the other side of St Julien, we dropped down to the town and home to Dear Stephanie, whom we found well-rested and having screws of her book. On thecway we met a chap taking his bottles to the recycle bin. On hearing that we were from Australia, he immediately began making plans for us to do a house-swap sometime in the future. Why not?

I am off to grill the sardines I bought for entree in the market today. Mustn't dally!

So long!

YBP,

Grugs

1 comment:

  1. Gee, life sounds so tough for the Roses! It really sounds like a dream holiday. Lovin' reading about your adventures! Pauline xxx

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