Food Markets! Oh MY!!!!!

While we have a.l.w.a.y.s. loved food markets, we’re slowly bringing Adrienne over to our side. Especially when they are like this one.

From the outside, I was less than impressed. It looked like a concrete parking structure (which it is above) and we saw people walking into the few openings along the sides. But once you get inside…………………….

…………..OMG! So many vendors were present and so many options for purchasing. Our first stop was cheese, Betty’s cheese.

Then we saw the meats, and the Iberian ham – so expensive. Those piggies were fed a diet of acorns.

Ham wasn’t the only thing. There was a rotissarie and these looked great.

This did not look so great for me – tripe. Now that is a special niche.

There were also some veggies. Adrienne had been craving olives.

While I stopped at the vendor with honey………and came home with a sampler package. Hope it makes it in my luggage – boy would that be a mess if it broke. 😦

Let’s talk seafood, and seafood and more seafood. Everything was so artfully placed.

There were oysters most places and this one also sold wine. Okay, okay, I ate one. I loved the saltiness, but they were bigger than what I’m used to. Those two – love that. Me, I prefer them a bit smaller.

After walking the market, what was next on the agenda? Lunch. On the far side of the market, restaurants were lined up with tables outside for eating. Eric checked out menus, asked to be seated, was told no and then we went back to our first stop (not a single person was sitting there yet) for a seat outside. Here’s a shot of their menu.

OMG – best decision ever coming back to this place. I mentioned in an earlier post about some of the best chicken I had tasted? This topped that. We ultimately ordered the chicken for four (okay, I know, there’s only three or us) which had two sides (frites and salad) that was a better price than ordering three meals. Sold.

BTW – nothing was left on the plate when we were done.

OMG again. When the frites were dipped in the juices of the chicken – h.e.a.v.e.n. Notice the olives in the photo above? They added enough salty flavor without being over-powering.

We got a quick shot before food started arriving. Our waiter was in the background. He was a real character. Those two had red wine and I was ready for beer. When the waiter thought my beer was too warm (drinking it too slowly), he swapped out my glass for a colder beer. Really? Really!

Almost forgot, we had a starter – shrimp carpaccio. OMG once again. Didn’t look like much since the shrimp were sliced so thin, but we all contemplated licking the plate. Those little round-ish things – crackers.

What to do after this? Walk. We had read about their canal system and also that it was great for enjoying the outdoors. The weather has been so good (much better than the forecast prior to arriving) so googled our walking directions and headed out.

We came across the locks initially.

Which led to the Canal de Brienne.

Very scenic and peaceful. Joggers went past us as we walked past locals, sitting out enjoying the great weather. . Naturally I found a few flowers along the way.

We walked the entire mile length (we definitely needed it!) walking under several bridges like this. Our pathway originally was the towpath for animals to pull the boats.

Let me close this post with these doors. I found many more as we wandered the streets of Toulouse, but eventually paired it down to these six.

Ginny