To market, to market to buy a fat hog (among other things)

We began our day by visiting the marketplace in Dijon (Les Halles).  The town has a permanent structure for the market that is held four days a week. There are also vendors that set up in open air markets surrounding the permanent building. The inside vendors are comprised of food vendors, primarily meat, fish and cheese, with a few fruit and vegetable vendors mixed in.  The open air vendors mainly sell clothing, accessories and fruit/vegetables. We browsed around the entire set-up and selected a few lunch items that we could take back to our apartment and heat up.  Of course, we also grabbed the mandatory baguette to accompany our lunch.  Jack enjoyed seeing the whole fish.  We even saw one chicken with its head still on.  Here is a picture at the market:

After lunch, we lazed around for a few hours to avoid the heat of the day.  Then, we headed out to explore the owl trail that I mentioned yesterday.  One of the first stops displayed a statue of the architect of the oldest portion of the palace across the street from our apartment.  The building dates back to the Middle Ages. You can see from the picture that Jack held true to boycotting our owl tour.  He promptly passed out in his stroller as soon as we began.  You will soon see evidence to that fact.

Another highlight of the tour was the owl statue at a corner of the local Notre Dame church.  This owl statue has given Dijon its special relationship with the owl.  It is considered good luck for passers-by to reach up and rub the owl with their left hand while they make a wish.  It has been rubbed so many times over the years that the owlish features have been rubbed plum off, as we would say back in Arkansas.  Sidney's awkward pose is due to her attempt to rub the owl while the picture was taken. She was the only one tall enough to reach it on her own.  Dan had to lift the other kids.  Jack missed out on the good luck, as he was still asleep.

The owl tour also led us past an ancient house that has been maintained in its Middle Ages style.  The facade has been used in numerous movies, including Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Gerard Depardieu.  I have never seen this movie because I have never been a big Gerard Depardieu fan.  He creeped me out in some movie from my youth where he played a father that was pretending to be his teenage daughter's older boyfriend.  I could never get over that concept. Anyway, I guess I need to force myself to see it now.  They are very proud of that movie in Dijon.

We needed some liquid refreshment half way through the owl tour, so we stopped in a local McDonalds for water and Coca Cola Light.  Don't judge-- we only bought beverages. Guess what we discovered? That is right...the elusive Royal with Cheese!!!  Pulp Fiction just had the country wrong.  I will partially forgive the movie, but I am holding John Travolta and Scientology personally responsible for the inaccuracy.  (Please see one of my Amsterdam posts if you have no idea what I am talking about and think I have lost my mind.)

The owl tour concluded in the oldest park in Dijon.  It is guarded over by a statue of a polar bear.  The connection of that animal is not clear, except that it was sculpted by a famous French sculptor.  Why wouldn't he have carved a giant owl?  Maybe they aren't fierce enough.  Any animal that can turn its head all the way around is fierce enough for me.  As you can see, Jack was asleep as we entered the park, but he woke up to play on the playground.  I am posting before and after pictures.

The park has a beautiful fountain in the middle of it.  There were actually kids swimming in the fountain.  Of course the girls didn't understand why I wouldn't let them swim in it.

We capped off our tour with a little playground time.  What did we discover?  They have the same bicycle merry-go-round as my kids' preschool -- a little taste of home in Dijon.  Dan and I think we could make this owl tour concept work in uptown Lexington.  How cute would it be for us to have pig plaques that lead us all around the major historical sites uptown???

On our walk back to the apartment, we discovered a cute fountain with three little girls smiling down on three small frogs.  The girls immediately identified with it and wanted their picture taken.  Jack declared the he is one of the frogs.  It was too cute not to share.