Chocolate!

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Originally uploaded by cspatrick

Sunday, October 03, 2010 Day 95
After a lazy morning, we left just before 11:00 to catch the tram down to a bus stop. The bus took us out to a barrier island called Palavas-les-Flots, a seaside resort some 10 kilometres south of Montpellier. We were here for the Salon du Chocolat. We asked the bus driver as we got off where the Salle Bleue is, and he pointed back and to our left, so we set out. We were most of the way there, walking along a parking lot, when we encountered a delicious-looking young man (alas, about 30 years to young!), who gave us a couple of tickets for free entry to the exhibit and told us where to find the entrance to the quite-blue building. We were skeptical that the tickets were valid, but when we reached the entry, we were signaled in without having to pay the 4.5€ entry fee. We arrived right around noon and spent about an hour moving among some 50 vendors, most of whom were selling chocolate or caramel. There were exceptions: there was a spice lady whose booth emitted delightfully exotic aromas; there was a vanilla-and-pepper lady, selling vanilla beans in long glass tubes and peppercorns in other long glass tubes; another booth had candles and vanilla-scented skin treatments of some sort. When we reached the back of the hall, we met our friend from the parking lot and tried some of his rosé champagne. It was quite nice –sweeter than the brut champagnes of most of my experience. We stopped after one glass of champagne – we had very little in our stomachs except some quite-sweet chocolates, and we didn’t want to be too light-headed. We covered the entire panoply of booths, then made a second round to buy some products. We got some caramel sauce (2 jars); some delicious dark chocolate; some dark chocolate with orange; a set of five jars of various pates a tartiner (spreads) in a selection of light and dark chocolates, with and without nuts; a caramel bar with almonds; and three candy mounds which turned out to be chocolate-encrusted marshmallow cream with a cookie base.
Chocolate-sated, we left and went in search of something more substantial for our stomachs. First, however, we dropped by the bus stop where the driver let us off and verified that the return time for the bus was 1:50, but it was not totally clear to us that the bus would be here on Sunday. While hanging around the bus stop, we spied a building painted Mediterranean blue with Neptune riding out of it on a wave. Here's his photo.
We moved on looking for food. We found a restaurant and decided to split a calzone, but when we hadn’t ordered after 10 minutes, we left, afraid we would miss the bus. We found a quickie sandwich shop and had the worst meal I have had since we arrived in France – a chicken Panini which had a pale slab of white meat in it along with some cheese, heated on a Panini maker. I only ate about half, and drank an Orangina. Roger had a beef Panini, and his experience was similar – it was a pretty tasteless sandwich.
We returned to the bus stop to find four young people there speaking English. They had read the bus schedule, but they noted something we missed – that the stop for the return trip would not be at this particular bus stop, but instead would be at one called Arenas. I announced that I knew where the Arenas bus stop was – just by happenstance I had noted it after we left the Salle Bleue. I led the way on a 2-minute trek to the bus stop, and just as we arrived, so did the bus. Talk about fortuitous! If we had missed this bus, we had another 2-hour or so wait. As the bus trekked off the barrier island, Roger pointed across the bayou (“etang” here) and said “see the pink flamingoes!” By the time I swiveled my head around to see them, I could only spot a couple and they were mostly white. Roger remarked that it would help if my eyes were higher. I have often thought that as well, but I would look pretty unusual if they were some four inches higher on my head, I’m sure.