Paris: Bread and Wine (Shopping Day!)

When we made our plans to go to Paris, both Rick and I had "musts." For me, the two big "musts" were the Sennelier art store and the Atelier des Luminieres for the Klimt production. (And that's to come!) For Rick, it was the bakery, Poilane.

Gypsy followers know that Rick loves baking bread and has become quite good at it. Visiting Poilane, the renowned boulangerie with their signature loaves, was a must.

Poilane was founded in 1932 and three generations have taken their hand at creating the remarkable and renowned breads, beginning with Pierre Poilane and followed by his son, Lionel, and now granddaughter, Apollonia.

The breads use stone ground flour, natural fermentation and a wood-fired oven and continue the traditional methods Pierre used when he first began the boulangerie.

The pain Poilane, their signature loaves, weigh two kilos and trust me, they are heavy-duty loaves!

They also make a thin shortbread cookie (samples in the baskets by the register!) and candies...

...along with other pastries....

....and tasty looking rolls!

Needless to say, we did not leave empty handed. (Next time Rick wants to visit the bakery where they make all these wonderful things! One can do that, but we didn't realize in time.)

Then it was time for a little shopping at Le Bon Marche. I have collected vintage chromas used for advertising by this renowned Paris department store, which has been around since 1838. (Not a typo!)

My favorite part of stores like this is the food hall.

Such pretty packaging! No, none of these came home with me. But it was tempting!

I know. You can no more judge food by the packaging as you can a book by the cover -- but sometimes I do!

We also enjoyed checking out the wine selection.

I have to say, I really appreciate a store that displays its wines well. Talk about giving a little room to breathe!

The area was enormous and I had a vision of our Cork Poppers wandering through, trying to select wines for the next tasting! The tough part would have been the extensive selection.

What surprised me was that wines were not priced terribly high here. Or rather, you could find relatively inexpensive wines, even in this lovely store.

You could also find very expensive ones. Yes, that middle one is 4,545 euros. Which, I might add, is more than we each paid for three and a half weeks in Paris and England combined (including shopping.)

Ah well. Time to move on. Next time -- my favorite thing in Paris!