Paris - Chatou Antique and Ham Market

Ham Alert! Day Three has just been the best day EVER!  We woke up to nice weather...a blue sky and NO rain!  Still a little chilly, but much better than yesterday.  I was super-excited to meet my friend, Geni, for the first time!  We've been pals on flickr for several years, ever since we formed a mutual admiration society for our French photographs.  I eventually found out that she's from Jasper, Alabama...just a ways down the road from Winfield, where my parents are from.  She married her college French professor, and has lived here for many years.  She's the one who told me about the HAM AND ANTIQUE MARKET, and then offered to meet us there.  Geni, you're great!  Thanks so much for evrahthang you did for us today, including bringing us back into Paris after the market, with a side trip past Versailles.

Krista and I were very savvy travelers this morning, thanks to Gaelle at the hotel's front desk.  Gaelle gave us perfect directions to get to Chatou, which is a small town about twenty miles outside of Paris.  Before you knew it, we were on Line 4 of the Metro at Vavin, switching to the RER A1 (train) line at Les Halles, and then hurtling into the countryside.  We arrived at Chatou/Croissy's train station, where Krista immediately spotted this sign!

We followed directions, and walked down to the Seine and around to the market.  People were streaming through the front gates, even at 10:30 on a Sunday morning, and there were lots of cute dogs, too!  Geni soon met us, and it was like we'd been friends forever.  We were obviously both born with cameras attached to our faces!

The market is outside, and  it's held twice a year, once in March and once in September.  There is a permanent version of it throughout the year, but those vendors were more expensive and the merchandise not as cool.  We wandered from aisle to aisle, and it was really almost too much to take in.  Many of the things I liked were too expensive, so I settled for trying to capture the day with my camera.

 Krista found the Breakfast of Champions near the front gates:  hot wine!

 These ceramic pots were much coveted by me, but they were out of my price range.

Ditto on the seltzer bottles...

 Of course Trixie traveled to Paris with me, but she would not be photographed until we'd left the Ham Market!