Monday’s Brocante 12-1-25

This being Monday, the weekly brocante market in the Cours Saleya was on our schedule. We had rain this morning but nothing memorable and it cleared by the time we got out.  Going to these shows uses the same logic as any fisherman would; I once caught something here therefore I will fish it again. We think due to the earlier rain some dealers made the decision to skip today’s show. Some dealers that we’re familiar with were not in attendance today.  I did happen on an artifact that I spotted a few years ago. In a little box I found a bicycling medal that I had seen back then. It was too expensive then, 50 euros, and it was too expensive today, 50 euros. The price was so ridiculous that I couldn’t even try to negotiate with the dealer.  Especially as the medal is not that interesting. I’ve been buying medals at least this good in the 5 to 15 euro range so phooey on him.  We usually do a postmortem on the markets and try to identify the most interesting thing we may have seen. Today it was a large copper sauce pan that was very old. We know it was old because the bottom and the side of the pan were both hammer welded together. And honestly it would have been a stellar buy at 35 euros, but of course we would have had to schlep it around. So we came away with nothing but sated curiosity about what was on offer. If we had an apartment to furnish it would be a very different story.

We left the market and walked a couple blocks over to Peixe to get lunch. We were able to get a nice table on a covered patio where we were sheltered from the breeze.  Their menu changes weekly and some of the things we got last week were not there today. But we managed; for appetizer we shared deep fried octopus with a really good tomato sauce. Then Deb had brochettes of beef on a bed of puréed celeriac and I had a grilled Maigre (Croaker) with braised carrots and potatoes. The desserts didn’t much appeal so we skipped them. 

When we were finished we decided to do our weekly shopping so we caught the tram up to the big Monoprix. We bought what is likely to be our last big grocery purchase in Nice since we leave on the 9th. When we got back to the apartment we started prioritizing the things we want to see and do before we leave. Tomorrow the plan is to go to Monaco by train and then take a bus up to La Turbie. We had a couple iterations of train and bus schedules interfaces before we got things settled.