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guillaume shopping for potatoes, onions and garlic at a produce stand in the huge open air market of st. denis.

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in the morning i went out for a baguette. i skipped the boulangerie beside our front door and looked further. the streets, so packed with partying people the night before, were full of traffic with a small number of pedestrians. i found a busy bakery just down the street and purchased a fresh baguette. back at the apartment we ate fresh bread with cheese and fruit juice. we packed for a long day. our morning destination was the basilica at saint-denis north of paris, and our afternoon destination was the palace of versailles south of paris.

we walked to the metro station at hotel de ville. it was one block closer to our apartment than the st-paul metro station. we rode line one to clemenceau station, changed to line thirteen, and rode to the end in the north parisian suburb of st-denis. just outside the metro station was an empty fountain with workmen tinkering on the tall water spraying apparatus exposed inside an access door in the bronze pedestal. beside the fountain was a city square which was completely filled with flea market stalls and throngs of shoppers. we skirted the edge of the square and looked down the next street to the basilica one block away. a plaster wall was covered with posters announcing an anti-war rally to be held in paris the next day. we decided to check out the flea market a bit before going to the basilica.

the crowd seemed like a mix of north african, middle eastern and central asian people. most women wore head scarves. black haired men in leather coats barked from stalls hawking watches, stereos, clothing or vegetables. the market was dense with shoppers. margueritte was in heaven. she dove right in with the other women, sifting through tables piled high with scarves priced at five euros each. i looked about a bit but became bored. she found one stall with a huge scarf selection and said i could go on and look at other stalls and meet her back at this one. i methodically explored the warren of stalls in the square. i found they spilled out in an irregular fashion down a side street. i circled back and checked with margueritte. we agreed to meet at the fountain in twenty minutes.

i wandered off through the stalls out of the city square. a half block from the plaza the stalls ran down streets on both sides of a large building and swarmed up the steps of the building. inside the entire ground floor of the building was a maze of stalls, with small variety stores, food booths, fish market stalls, butchers and bakers. teenagers pushed dollies piled high with boxes of fish and produce to resupply busy stalls. i looked out the door of the building and saw the stalls descend down the streets and disappear around the corner. i circled back by the train station through a small mall of shops and waited at the fountain for margueritte.

she returned with a new scarf. i took her to the building with the bakeries and butcher shops. we stopped at a produce booth where i bought some garlic and potatoes. then we walked to the basilica.

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