Saturday, May 11th-2019
Today our road trip is taking us to the “Deep South” of France to share the Céret market experience with Jennifer.
Céret is probably one of our most favourite spots with plane tree lined streets and it has just enough going on in the town with a good café /restaurant scene, many local shops plus larger grocery stores and of course there is the fantastic Saturday market that winds all the way around the centre of town.
Céret is located at the foothills of the Pyrenees, very close to Spain ... in fact, today as we exited from the auto route, the built in GPS took us thru Spain and then back into Céret.
Not sure if we missed something but when we returned back to Montlaur the Gendarmerie had our usual road closed off.
Who knows ... maybe the GPS satellite knew the road was closed.
Even with an early start, we arrived later than anticipated due to the detour through Spain ... Jennifer can say she also went to Spain! Haha!
Remember this place ... overlooking Place de la Liberté with stunning views over the tiled roofs and mountains.
We stayed at this apartment on three separate occasions.
Here’s a memory from 4 years ago ... Monsieur Honey snuck out to buy me some flowers!
The market was as busy as always even with the threat of rain.
This vendor was hoping to cash in on the weather ... selling “parapluies”.
Luckily we didn’t need one! It only rained when we were inside.
We wandered, checking out the various vendors selling their products and wares.
And of course it was cherry season ... a must buy!
They were juicy and sweet!
And every year the last weekend in May, there is a Cherry Festival.
We had hoped to eat alfresco in the “Place des Neuf Jets” but the weather man or was it Mother Nature had other plans, neither of whom were cooperating. The sky was dark and threatening rain.
We had reserved a table at Quattrocento where we enjoyed a delicious lunch « a l’intérieur «.
A little more strolling after lunch to be able see without the market stalls set up.
Picasso’s fountain ...
A street view with the giant plane trees ...
We discovered some “street art” paintings on walls ... I didn't know anything about these previously, after some searching I found an article from November 2017 in the P-O Life magazine.Here’s an excerpt ... New Faces in Cerét by written Elaine Koerner.
The artist behind the faces prefers to be known only as FAS.
“I am very proud of our artistic history,” explains FAS, who lives in Céret with his family.
“I decided to create these portraits in tribute to a handful of the many painters and other artists who either were locals or else were drawn to Céret’s charms as visitors. My portraits include both well-known and lesser-known painters.”
His portrait project got started more than a year ago after he received a thumbs up from the Mairie.
There is suppose to be six to nine of these throughout the town. If interested you can read the whole article online.
The beautiful bottle brush plant ...
And one last stop at Bar Pablo before leaving town ...
À bientôt Céret!
