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| Vence Market Day |
Our plan today (Friday) was to walk into Vence and meet Nola and Randy at Henri’s for coffee around 10:30 am. Before we got started, MA got an exciting e-mail from Princess (Cruises). We had purchased the least expensive cabin with an obstructed view (meaning life rafts outside your window) for next week’s Baltic cruise. The e-mail contained the happy message that we had been upgraded to a much better cabin on Deck 14 and we now had a balcony with outside seating. This is the second time this has happened to us and just one of the reasons why we stick with Princess when we go these trips.
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| Yves, our waiter |
We left the condo and walked into the center of the town. Things were already bustling with commercial activity as Friday is market day in Vence. Vendors come here from all over to set up their booths in the town square. About half of them sell wonderful fruits, tomatoes, cheeses, sausages, honey, etc. The others sell clothing and accessories and they offer real discounts compared to store prices. First though we found Nola and Randy at Henri’s. MA and Nola then took off to do some banking and check out the market and I started checking out the photo ops there.
The idea behind hiding your camera is the fact that people lose their natural candid poise the moment they see the lens pointed at them. The trick about photographing people is to not to let them know you’re taking their picture. I call it shooting from the hip. I set my camera to A (Aperture Priority), set the F-stop to 11, zoom in to max wide-angle (28mm) and set the ISO to 800 which will vary as high as 1600 and as low as 200 depending on the light. I carry the Nikon D3s (which is a big, heavy camera) across my shoulder with only the lens pointing from the front of the vest. Holding the camera with both hands I try and keep the camera where the horizon is straight. I usually walk with the sun to my back to take advantage of available light and avoid sun flairs. I just walk around pointing the Nikon at an unsuspecting subject and shoot. Some of the photos are good, others not so good (you’ll never see those). I spent almost two hours in the market. Some of the pictures are attached here.
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| Lars |
One of the pictures is of Yves (pronounced Eve). He’s the waiter at Henri’s and if you ever had an image of a French waiter, Yves fits it to a tee. He is always polite, courteous, and speaks English, but only to me. He’s really a good guy. The other photo is Lars. Lars is from Stockholm, Sweden and lives in Vence in an apartment above Henri’s. He is an artist. Although I’ve never seen any of his work, his persona and dress, all say: “I’m an artist!” He’s also very nice and polite and speaks English to me.
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| Vence Market Day |
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| Olive Salesman |
Did I mention lunch? It was our turn to introduce Randy and Nola to a local outdoor restaurant where we had eaten last year when we were here. We remembered it well because it serves the greatest hamburgers and French fries. Nola was overheard telling Randy that maybe that would be their new favorite “resto”.
We started back to the condo about 3:00pm. One quick stop we made was at the local Computer store to print our new Princess boarding passes and luggage tags. While Nola made great friends with the owner’s little daughter, MA and I ended up helping them with a paper jam. They were so happy about that they would not charge us for the copies. MA left 1 euro for a “glace” (ice cream) for the little girl.
Nola is here and the two of them have been busy looking at Condo rentals for next year’s trip as we know we have fallen in love with this place and will want to come back.
One more village day-trip tomorrow, then comes the process of packing up and getting ready for the SAS flight to Copenhagen on Monday, but not before I cook Sunday lunch on Randy’s gas grill! Speaking of SAS, the weight allowance per bag (only 1 checked per passenger) is 40 pounds each within Europe (as opposed to 50 pounds each in the States). This calls for some expert planning and pre-weighing of the bags as we juggle things around to get it just right. Excess baggage fees are not something we want to pay!
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| Photographer selling HDR photos, we chatted a bit |
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| Doll dressed in lavender |
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| After the vendors packed and left, it was time for boules. |
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| Adrian, acordianist |
Stay tuned and thanks for checking in on our travels.
Wayne,
ReplyDeleteAgain - I'm playing catch-up on email today.
You may want to avoid looking at the market these days. It's getting more and more: "I look into the hills from which comes my help...." Think we better keep out ears tuned to hearing a very large trumpet someday soon.
Thanks for sharing your sights and experiences as you and MA travel around Europe.
HAVE A GOD BLESSED DAY - dave b.