Un bon week-end!

Saturday morning I woke up to drizzling rain. I had had a great sleep and nothing was going to dampen my spirits. After breakfast, I took the tram to the market at Les Arceaux. I've written about it in an earlier blog and "c'est un marché très intéressant". I stopped by one of the kiosks, a boulangerie of sorts, to buy le pain complét that Patricia and I so enjoy. The boulangère is a lovely man and he and I had a brief, but most agréable chat. In the fall I had bought Patricia a beautiful red cyclamen that continues to thrive on her tiny exterior shelf outside the dining room window. I decided to tell the vendeuse who sold it to me about how happy we were with the cyclamen. While I was there, I noticed she had some beautiful spring primulas in vibrant colours for sale. Patricia is so kind and generous and I thought I would buy her some for the window shelf. Both the vendeuse and Patricia were most pleased. My other encounter of note was with the man who sells the honey Keith likes so well. When I purchased a jar in the fall, the honey was amber and liquid. This time, en hiver, the honey was crystallized. The man, in French, explained the differences to me. He too, was most delightful.

The afternoon was spent doing a little more shopping with Patricia, homework and getting ready to go to the wine tasting and art exposition at the caviste Tires-Bouteilles. It just poured in the afternoon, but by the time I walked back to the tram, it had eased a bit. I arrived at Tires-Bouteilles around 6 p.m. It turns out that the artist was a woman from Nîmes. Unfortunately, I did not catch her name. Her work was hung along the walls above the wine. Most of it was done on metal with a few pieces on canvas. She told me she uses paint bombs, stencils and other media to produce her art. The wine featured this evening was a flight from the small domaine Monplézy from Pézenas, France. The white was very good. I was not keen on the rose or the first red I tried, but I very much enjoyed the Félicité and Emocíon reds. Before I left, I bought a bottle of Félicité made from Grenache, Carignan and Syrah grapes that are grown on gravel soils, handpicked and aged in barrels. Whilst there, I met quite a few interesting folks including Delphine's husband (co-proprietor of the caviste) and two English couples who spoke very little French. After a couple of hours, it was time to head home for a delicious meal with Patricia.

Sunday, I spent most of the day visiting some of main attractions in Montpellier.  Le Musée Fabre (below) is an amazing art museum founded in 1825 by a Montpellier painter François-Xavier Fabre.

It underwent a massive renovation that was completed in January 2007 and now houses a large collection of sculptures and paintings from the Renaissance to modern times. There are works from Flemish, Italian, French, Dutch, Spanish and American artists. Here are just a few of the photos I took.

I can't recall the painter, but I appreciated the rubenesque women in the tableau.

"La negresse aux pivoines" 1870 by Frederic Bazille.

"Le gateau des rois" 1774  by Jean-Baptiste Greuze. The cake in the painting looked just like the one we ate recently to celebrate Epiphany.

The picture below gives you a sense of the size of some of the rooms filled with paintings and lovely sculptures such as this one made from marble.

Needless to say, this was in the contemporary section. The painter, Pierre Soulages has donated a significant number of works from his collection to the museum. Quite frankly, I liked the 17th century paintings better.

As part of the expansion of Le Musée Fabre, l'Hôtel de Cabrières-Sabatier d'Espeyran (1874-75) is now hosting a new department dedicated to the Decorative Arts. It is an historic residence, also recently renovated, that exhibits a remarkable collection of furniture, ceramics and silver. 

This is the entrance to the Hôtel de Cabrières-Sabatier d'Espeyran.

The Red Salon with incredibly ornate furnishings.

Another salon filled with period pieces. Everything was a "bit over the top".

This was an Italian table located in the anti-chambre.

Another view of the exterior of the building.

I thought I might take in one more exhibit at L'Espace Dominique along the esplanade. I had been there in the fall to see a small, but entertaining exposition by Albert Dubout. However, as I passed by, the title of the exposition was "Sexe, Cannibale" by André Cervera. There were a number of huge murals in the windows which gave me a pretty clear picture of what the exhibit was about. Guess what...I decided to give it a miss. Regardless, it was a wonderful week-end filled with new experiences, new people, wonderful food, wine and art!