A Practically Perfect Day

What makes up a perfect day depends on who's day it is of course, but my perfect day was encapsulated by a trip to the lovely seaside resort of La Tremblade last Sunday.  It was a beautiful sunny day and with some money burning a hole in my pocket I was keen to find a brocante market and buy some stock.  

Having consulted my trusty little yellow book (a local brocante diary and must have in France for all brocanteurs and keen antiquers alike) we plumped for La Tremblade because we had never visited it before and fancied a paddle in the sea!

We were delighted when we arrived and saw that much of the housing stock was made up of beautiful Belle Epoque villas from the turn of the 19th century (note to self... "buy holiday home there when lottery numbers come up").

By 10am it was already incredibly hot and the flea market was large and heaving but in spite of this I managed to find a handful of lovely trucs for my Etsy shop.

One of the lovely Belle Epoque Villas from a lovely shady café terrace

After an hour or so I was still happy browsing but my husband, Spike, is like a finely tuned timepiece when it comes to mealtimes and it wasn't long before his stomach was telling him it was lunch o'clock.  The next mission was to find a place to eat that served either vegetarian food or fish (I am a pescatarian which if you live in France translates as deviant).

Hopeful that we would find fish on the menu being a coastal resort we had a little wander down the long sandy beach to avoid going back through the busy lanes lined with market stalls.  Eventually having discounted most of the eateries we passed we stumbled upon the most beautiful Art Nouveau restaurant called Le Martin Plage.

Le Martin Plage with stunning Art Nouveau windows

I love this sign.. so reminiscent of the Paris Metro

We both plumped for the skate with caper sauce and were delighted with the beautiful meal that arrived.  I then chose the home made tarte au citron to follow which was equally delicious (although I ate it before I remembered to take a photo... oops!)

Skate with Caper Sauce (it looked a lot better in real life)

After lunch we decided to swing by a little flea market on the way home that was situated in a quiet village called St. Agnant.  Little did we know that on the way we would be treated to the sight of storks nesting with their young on many of the pylons along the busy link road.   We would have loved to have stopped to take some photos but sadly we had an idiot up our posterior so it was impossible to pull over.  I've included the following photo that some other brave soul took.

One of many storks nesting on pylons in the Charente Maritime

The market at St. Agnant added a couple more trucs to the days' haul but the storks were the highlight of my day and definitely made the detour worthwhile.

All in all, for me, it was a practically perfect day comprising beautiful weather, shopping for trucs, a walk along a sandy beach, a wonderful lunch in an Art Nouveau restaurant and seeing the storks with their young - I couldn't have asked for more (well finding an Imperial Fabergé Egg for 5€s would be super but perhaps that's asking a bit much!)