one last morning in Bordeaux.
Sunday morning, all the stores are closed. Blue skies and a light breeze, typically beautiful spring morning. Walk out to find some breakfast, hoping that a bakery is open, thinking of croissants. My stomach is twisted in the unique stress of having overstayed my welcome in this imposing city, massive white stone buildings towering in endlessly raised architectural tunnels along the streets, no trees in sight.
We exit the apartment through a heavy, ornate, dark blue door in the middle of the stone wall, stepping down immediately onto the street. Turn right and duck beneath construction, the narrow street lined on one side with perfectly parked cars. Bumper to bumper, practically no space between. At the end of the street the buildings clear and just ahead is a small island of flat, empty space sandwiched between two streets. In the space is a collection of white capped tents: a morning market.
There are six stands at the market. From right to left: crates of oysters, and old man making crêpes, a colorful array of fresh fruit. A local stand with an enormous variety of cheese: giant aged wheels, molding in shades of green to grey; small white, crusted cakes; hard, white triangles from which he shaves off chunks. Next to the cheese stand is a stand with rotisserie chickens, roasting on parallel vertical sticks; and beside this stand, breads. Enormous cakes of bread, weighed and sold by the kilogram: baguettes, croissants, brown breads, rye breads, white breads. Soft centers and hard crusts.
I buy a crêpe, spread thin across the griddle with a flat wooden tool, finished with a light sprinkling of sugar before it is folded into a triangle and handed to me on a napkin. We admire the fruits and walk to the bread stand, where the man cutting and weighing chunks of bread happily bounces around and laughs with his customers. He cheerfully educates my French-Canadian friend on the local Bordeaux french words for the butt of the bread: translated roughly to ‘corner’. Would you like the corners of the bread?, he asks me, in French, as he slices the remaining chunk bread in half and weighs my portion, before sliding it into a bag and handing it over to me with a wink and an enormous smile.
We walk back to the apartment, spirits considerably lightened. I book my last-minute ride from Bordeaux back to Biarritz, tearfully say goodbye to my host, give my final four kisses in Bordeaux and hop in the car to continue traveling on alone. Back to the Spanish border, where I rent a tent from the hostel and set it up cheerfully in the shaded shelter of the backyard in fading hours of the day, finally feeling the lightness of freedom. A bundle of white asparagus to cook for dinner, a leftover bottle of port from friends, an evening to sleep in the rustic, nostalgic comfort of a tent before dedicating to plans for what’s next.