A Trip to the Street Market

The Beaumarchais market the largest in Paris, is right around the corner from us & only open on Thursdays & Sundays.  The sights are everywhere.  The weather continues to be cool (good), cloudy (less than good), with periods of rain (ugh!).  Without the sun, all colors are muted.

Here are a bunch of shots in no particular order.

There are three aisles with stalls on both sides that run for several blocks.

As it gets closer to the end of the market, around 1pm, the aisles & the produce thin out while the prices drop.

I have always loved the spice merchant's booth.  Here is a trade that is thousands of year old.  After shooting this photo, I walked around the right side and leaned over the spice bins.  The rising aroma of those spices combine for something out of this world.

If I were to caption this photo, it would be "The hen is on break."

Olives.   At our Safeway, the price is $8.99 a pound.  At 6.20 euros a kilo, that price is less than half the U.S. cost.

Lots of ethnic take-out. 

Prepared meats with a specialty.

The fishmonger.  Different species of fish than we're used to.  And a Jewish New Year's greeting with French spelling.

Oysters and wine al fresco.

In addition to food they have clothing, hardware & other products.

As mentioned in previous years, words in a foreign language seem more exotic.  So we see lots of things in English, the sign on the clothing store that starts "I love you..." for example.

But get someone who knows a tiny bit of English, arm them with a French-English dictionary & sometimes you get what I call nonsense English.  This closeup of a T-shirt is my nomination for nonsense English of 2013.  It reads "Happy shiny people of the year!"






And finally, street musicians...always a part of the market.  But these two are a cut above average. Here's a vid.  If you can't view it here, go to the web version, HERE.

 

A sign (literally) of increasing popularity of Vietnamese food.  Actually this is just an ordinary Asian take out place with pho on the menu, sort of a phaux pho place.




 

















Here is a pun in French that even I get. 


















We're heading to Rouen for a day trip on Monday.  It is assumed the weather will be rainy, we'll just dress for it.  The French pronunciation for this city is interesting. Based on the spelling, I'd give it two syllables, something like "roo-aw".  Nope, the French have one syllable, something like "wong"  Kinda like "wong" but not pronouncing the final "g".