I woke up early this morning to the cooing of pigeons. They were hanging out right outside our window. “Flap, flap, flap!” was all I heard as Darcy opened the window.
“Ben, there is a market being set up right outside our hotel!” she exclaimed.
Indeed there was. We got ready for the day and went out to explore the market. The public plaza in front of our hotel was filled with vendors selling fresh fruits and vegetables, nuts and candy, meats, cheeses, local wines, handicrafts, etc… The vendors stretched up and down the crooked, narrow streets of the medieval city. We later learned that the market is only set up on Wednesday and Saturdays. By chance, we happened to be there on a Wednesday. “Lucky!” (in Napoleon Dynamite voice).
Strawberries - Sarlat 073
We spent the morning walking around browsing the goods and exploring the city. Darcy took a picture around every corner. She was so into taking pictures, if fact, that she stepped both feet directly into “l’turd”. Luckily, a fountain was nearby so she was able to clean up.
Washing off le turd - Sarlat 064
While exploring, we also came across a cat that followed us around for a while. It made me think of L’Beast back home. I wrote here a postcard a few days ago. I am such a dork!
Le Beast - Sarlat 036
After browsing all the goods of the vendors, we decided it would be a good idea to purchase some local goods and send off a care package to our parents. We purchased an assortment of soaps, nuts, wine, cooking oil, and spices. We also decided to send back some stuff that we weren’t using. Note to self for next European trip: The Europeans do not haul around large mugs of coffee with them all day so there is no need to bring a large, stainless steel coffee mug. The Europeans drink tiny cups of coffee and drive tiny cars and are generally tiny people. God, we are such pigs!
Ok, so back to the care package and package of unnecessary items. We went to La Poste and were helped by a quite, kind lady who spoke no English and later, a gregarious man who spoke some broken English. This guy was hilarious! He took our care package, looked at the listing of the contents, shook it slightly, and began speaking.
“I send package, but receiver maybe no receive package” he said while making all sorts of different hand gestures. “United States, they use laser and see wine bottle, but they no can see it contains wine.”
“Kerplow!” he exclaimed.
This guy was really funny and helpful. His mannerisms were just as I would expect a Frenchman’s to be. The French are great people (except for that asshole waiter in Bordeaux). So, we were able to send back the coffee mugs and other random stuff, but not the care package. Sorry parents!
The rest of the day/evening we spent hanging out in the city. We still don’t have the French eating schedule down. They typically have a very long, elaborate lunch, then eat dinner later in the evening. Most of the restaurants close after lunch and don’t reopen until 19:00 (7:00 pm) for dinner. We’ve had several occasions where we have been starving around five or six and haven’t been able to find anywhere to eat. For dinner, we both ordered the “Plat du Jour” (meal of the day) and had a carafe of wine.
The plan for the next day is to make it all the way to Nice. Since Sarlat is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, we decided we would catch the first train out of town. It departs at 6:00 am, so we called it an early night.
Click here to see all our Sarlat photos.
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