Field trip to Isle-sur-la-Sorgue

The other day was market day in Menerbes. It's a small market, as you can see. Maceo, Kate, and I wandered up and down it while we waited for the small grocery nearby to open so we could buy our baguette, pain au chocolat, and pain a raisin. There was a cheese seller, some veggies, some nougat (at 45 euro a kilo!), a butcher, and a fish monger. We got some veggies.

After that mini adventure, we got organized to go to Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. La Sorgue is a river that issues from Fountaine du Vauclouse, a spring/small town nearby which we plan to visit on Tuesday and might even canoe on, if they let Macers paddle. The town of Isle-sur-la-Sorgue is known for its antiques market, and it also has a floating market on Sundays, as it is criss-crossed by canals and is quite picturesque. This also means that the day we went, normal market day, it was quite crowded, too. It's a bit different, we are learning, travelling with a toddler. Excursions are truncated. But it's also fun, as everything is new to him, and therefore, we see it a bit anew, too. Like this chair.

Later that day, we went to dinner at the house of a friend of Lucy's. Laetitia had spent a few days in Amherst as part of a Fulbright program and ate dinner one night at the McMurrers's house as part of the program. Apparently, she and Lucy hit it off, and it turns out that her house is about 25 minutes from Menerbes, where we are staying. By the way, here's our street and the church next to our house (up on the right) here in Menerbes. The people at the door of the church are listening in on the daily practice sessions for an upcoming Mozart concert the choir is scheduled to perform.

We have dubbed the GPS in our car "Mrs. Pickles", as she has a bit of an English accent, is polite to a fault ("Follow the road, please"), and Kate has a colleague who shared that she has a Brit coming on an exchange program named Lucy Pickles. In any case, Mrs. Pickles steered us to the house in fin style, though we didn't fully believe her and ended up both consulting two tiny French women in the town of Lagnes and ending up in a field. Dinner was lovely; their house had a big yard with a pool, a small play house, a toy tractor for riding, and a Beagle, all of which enchanted Maceo. Dinner was roasted pork tenderloin, various sausages, a tomato salad, a green salad, and a dessert of cheeses and the local melons the region is famous for. We stayed till nearly 10:30, and even Maceo left happy and smiling. He wasn't so happy when he woke up at 7 the next day, but that's what happens when you stay up late, partying with a Beagle.