Saturday . Markets, Chitterings and Mikve

There is a biggish market 50m from my apartment on Saturdays and Tuesdays. I went this morning. It was overwhelming. Far too many choices and  many things i had no idea what they were.  I was particularly  impressed with the number of stalls selling a very wide variety of intesting bread. I found a fruit shop with lovely staff. One  lady talked slowly and clearly and managed to understand what I was saying.  I did buy a tielle setoise. I small round pie, about the size of a largish hand . The top is roughly put on with fluted edges. Sete, a town along the coast s of here is known for its oysters. There were several oyster stalls at these markets and at the enclosed one I went to yesterday. They all sold these. I had hoped they had oysters in them but no, other chopped up seafood in a spicy tomato sauce apparently.  Well, that's what the guy who sold it to me told me. 

I had lunch at a local French style brasserie but it was too cold to sit outside and the food was a bit ordinary. The highlight was when I was looking at the menu . There was a word, andouillettes, that i didnot know.  So looked it up. The English translation said chitterlings. Not a word i had ever heard.. So I asked the waiter who was walking past. He  rattled of a whole lot of words from which I gathered it was some bit of a pig. Then he started rubbing his stomach and miming pulling something long out. I got it . Intestines. But I also had looked it up. 

In the afternoon I went on an English speaking tour of the city. The guide was very interesting. For me the highlight was going to  the Mikve,  a medieval Orthodox Jewish ritual bath.  The guide told us about they had been filled in and forgotten about until they were rediscovered in 1985.  It was about 1 story underground.

Dinner time.