To Market, To Market, Jiggity Jig

hansel and greteels house, maybe?
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Sunday, September 30. Beynac-et-Cazernac.

I find it interesting that none of the little towns along the Dordogne River, including mine, are listed in the Real Travel directory, so I have to pick a town nearby to narrow down the location for my blog. There are plenty of people here, but it’s definitely not crowded. I hear lots of Dutch and German being spoken. It is considered off season now, but the sun is back out and the temperature is in the high 70’s…t-shirt weather, for sure.

how many different ways can you butcher "stella artois"

the chicken rotiserrie dudes at the market, St. Cyprien
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Today there is a market in Saint-Cyprien, only 10km down the road. I’m really enjoying the local markets and now it’s the first thing I ask about when I get to town. There’s only one main street and the umbrellas and tables with everyone’s wares are stretched the length of it, as far as I can see. There are purses, shoes, beautiful scarves from India, and whole racks of great quality clothes. Handmade jewelry mounted to velvet boards, sparkling in the morning light, draw your eyes up, and baskets that sit on the ground piled high with handpainted porcelain knobs draw your eyes down ( I buy 4 white knobs with blue dots). Beautiful square umbrellas are opened up and lying on the pavement so you can admire the designs. I walk slowly and look at everything, sort of like “table licking”, I guess. I wonder if there is such a thing! If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the translation of window shopping in French is “to lick the windows”.

beynac
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And the food! There is fresh cheese (the local specialty is “corbecou”, little mini rounds of fresh goat cheese), fresh bread, meats, fruits and vegetables. I buy some lettuce, but I misunderstand and end of with three big heads (well, they were only 1 euro total, but who needs three heads of lettuce?! Maybe I’ll give some away…). The smell of something exotic wafts through the air as I pass a table with mounds of spices poured out loosely onto cloths. There are pots of Paella being stirred, swimming with pink shelled prawns as big as your fist, and a little Asian girl selling vegetable rolls. The longest line is at the rotisserie truck, spits of chickens, pork, flat rotating baskets of beef turning round and round, cooking right before your eyes. I’ll bet a lot of Sunday dinners are coming from this truck! They also have a huge bin of “pomme de terre”, potatoes in a buttery sauce. Do the French know what cholesterol even is?

on the road...cruella de ville's house?
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At the end of the street I sit at a small table on the sidewalk in front of a little café with a burgundy awning. The flower shop across the street has topiaries and potted cyclamen, mums and something tall and delicate in blue staked up in a dark copper fluted urn on display outside. Everyone has brought their dog, and they frolic freely in the street, dragging their leads behind them. I try to order a Stella Artois, because I see a sign for it, but the old gentleman can’t understand me (how many ways can you butcher Stella Artois?!). I go for “biere”, and get one. I never know what brand I’m going to get, the bartender gets to choose. I think it’s like beer roulette, only I don’t think you can die from it! The owner is over 70, and he’s taken a liking to me. He sees me writing, sees my camera, keeps refilling my beer and tries to strike up a conversation. He owns the building and wants to show me his garden (for real?), and he does have a garden in the back, on a lower level with a fountain and mossy pathways. It doesn’t actually look like it’s been tended in about 20 years, but it does have potential. He invites me back for an aperitif tonight, but I don’t go. Why is it only guys over 70 try to pick me up, ha ha?!

dusk from the bluff
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I leave the market with a bouquet of flowers, 2 scarfs, 3 heads of lettuce, 4 painted knobs, (…and a partridge in a pear tree…tra la) an avocado, croissants, a bar of homemade natural soap that smells like lily of the valley, some brussel sprouts and green beans (because god knows you don’t really get veggies in the restaurants here unless you count pomme frites as a vegetable), a box of 6 little goat cheeses (which I am instructed to carry upright only, after the seller sees the bag dangling from my wrist), a roasted chicken and some pomme de terre.

a view from the top, dusk, beynac
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After lunch I ride my bike along the canal for an hour, walk up and down the paths of Beynac, see the castle, and take some great pictures from the top of the bluff, where you can see forever. I can see 3 or 4 other castles in the surrounding hillsides, and according to my guidebook, one is owned and lived in by a Texan, and rumor has it, the other is owned by the son of the emir of an Arab country. The architecture here is enchanting, and I stop to look at every hinged gate, arched doorway, stone tower and carved lintel. I am still looking for fairies. The streets are named in Languedoc, the old French language, so they sound Italian or Latin to me…

beynac
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I’ve been given a whole jangly set of old fashion keys for my house, which worked smoothly yesterday (you have to lock yourself in at night from the inside), but tonight I can’t get them to work. I try every subtle key jiggling trick I know, and I cannot lock the door. I should add that never once have I felt unsafe or threatened in any way since I’ve been in France, and besides, I’m up a steep walking path, and it’s deserted by bedtime. I pull my mountain bike across the inside of the entrance and go to upstairs to sleep.