Day 22: Uzes Market Day

Today was market day!  But the town seemed strangely quiet. I’d have thought the place would be buzzing with a market that was reported to be the best in France being held!
As we made our way through the cobbled streets, the noises of the market indeed became clearer and louder and sure enough, the entire Place aux Herbes had been transformed over night from a quiet place for meals and relaxing, into a huge bustling market place.  In fact the market had completely filled the square, spilled out into the surrounding streets, and then flowed both ways down the boulevard as well.  Huge!

The market truly was great, and though I haven't been to every market in France, I can believe the claims to its greatness.  I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

Want, really badly.  Oh, and Mansinthe??

We took a break from the market; it really was that big, and had a café au lait. Then we went back into the fray and picked up a few things for meals later: such as warm baked jambon on the bone, rotis poulet, olives, an aubergine dip and the most beautiful fluffy cafè flavoured nougat.  This region is known for its nougat.  It's also known for gummy bears, but we just didn’t have enough time for gummy bears.
After spending a good chunk of the day at the market we headed back to the apartment where I quickly realised I had lost the keys! That meant they had fallen out of my pocket somewhere when I’d taken out my wallet.  I had to try and find them, as even though we had a spare set, it would have been dreadful to report them lost.
So back to that huge market I went. Since I figured they would only have been lost when I took my wallet out of my pants, I revisited all the places I had bought something from.  I was surprised I was even able to find the shops again!  First stop was easy, the one legged man with a dog with a dummy.  Other shops were harder, but one by one I found them.  The last place in the market was where I bought the ham and chicken, and just now it was absolutely crowded, which meant I had to wait ages for people to move on so I could see if the key was anywhere on the ground.  But it wasn’t.  The very last place to look was the first place I had bought something.  The café. This also was the most likely, but I had to leave it till last as if the key was lost in the market, then chances of finding it grew slimmer the longer it was there.
I entered the bar, said my bonjours and asked my parlez-vous Anglais? I got a response back, "a little" and so I asked if anybody had found a key.  "Oui." Really?!? But the key they showed me was a chain of keys, and my key was just one little lonely blue key.  Hopes dashed. But then she said "wait, oui."
"A small key? Blue?"
"Oui, yes!" I said.
She said OK wait, and started looking around the bar, the till, the shelf, but couldn’t find it.  Then she asked some others, and a few minutes later, I was presented with my lost key!  I was so happy, and so relieved.  I thanked her profusely, "merci, merci, tres bien merci!" I know I wasn’t speaking properly, but I was so grateful.
Back at home we ate some of the goods from the market for lunch, then did the town tourist walk and went back to the café where my key was returned and I bought their most expensive cocktail to celebrate and as a thankyou.  Then we went to Vanilla Passion where I had an enormous ice cream, complete with liqueur, fruit and butterflies.
I was feeling pretty full now, and needing to burn off some of the food I’d been eating so Michelle returned to the apartment and I went looking for the start of that aqueduct to Nîmes.

The map was kind of a bit misleading as it wasn’t to scale, and where it showed the path zig-zag a couple of times through the park, it actually zigzagged multiple times down a steep cliff through thick forest.  But it was a lovely scenic walk past old ruins of houses of which the history and age was unknown, down to the river at the bottom of the valley in an open grassed area with shady trees.  Families were playing with their kids, groups played football, and friends sat and had picnics.  There must have been a road into this place as I can’t imagine they all walked down the side of the cliff I came in on.

I followed the river upstream and came to the start of the aqueduct with the remains on a holding tank.  Mission accomplished!

After all that food and exercise, tonight was dinner in and watching the Eurovision Final.  I was hoping for Netherlands to win, and even though it was close I knew Austria and Conchita was going to take the night.

And if you just wanna see photos, click here.  Sorry you had to read all the above to get to this point.