Day 2 of the 4-day trip in the South of France trip brought with it quite a bit more rain, but we managed to hit a great little market in the town of Bonnieux. It seems that each town or village hosts a market day on a different day of the week.

At these places, soaps, oils, sausages, wine, and cheese are the main sellers, with fresh produce sweet treats, and tons of kitchsy-but-somehow-tasteful souvenirs also in abundance. Toothpick-holders, soup spoons, tea cozies, you name it. But still, the quality of the food is so high, it makes you never again want to buy a supermarket-packaged item.

The afternoon brought us to Gordes, a dramatic-looking town essentially pasted onto a hillside. More of the same for sale, with the added plus of great art stores and restaurants.

You feel the sense of history in Gordes, much the same as so much of France - things feel as though they are largely untouched from when horses and knights walked the streets, perhaps also selling lavender-scented oven mitts for 10 Euros.

Next up on the blog: a day in Marseille, eh?

The town of Gordes

These walls lined many properties on the drive up to Gordes

Mon dieu! Centuries-old graffiti perverts? The famed Saucisse du Saignon? Or just an extremely juvenile photographer?

Saignon

Saignon

The view from Saignon

Saignon

Housekeeping

**Update**

Let me guess, anonymous international visitor. You Googled "Housekeeping" and saw the picture of the attractive housekeeping model above in the Images results. She has made my site - which has absolutely nothing to do with housekeeping - rather popular from all four corners of the world.

I'm sorry, but I don't know what to tell you. I doubt she's actually a housekeeper; and if she was, I doubt even more that your wife/girlfriend would be cool with you hiring her.

The post from October 2010 was just a way to get readers of my travel blog to provide some ideas as to what they wanted to see, and I just happened to have the word "housekeeping" in the text (see below).

Alas, I bid you good luck with your housekeeping search. If you feel like reading a Lonely Planet-approved travel blog in the meantime, welcome.

10.06.10

Dear readers,

For the first time in BCB history, this post is completely unrelated to travel. Just two items...

1) You can now "Like" Big City Blog on Facebook, and add comments there if you want. There will be updates each time there's a new post, plus some other random comments and fun items. Just enter "Big City Blog" in the search bar on FB, or click here to go to it directly.

2) If you have 5 minutes, I've created a short survey in preparation for a potential book, and for any improvements that need to be made to the blog itself.

It's all anonymous, so if you can help out, that would be great.

Click here to get started on the survey. (Did I mention it is 5 minutes maximum? And anonymous?)

Obrigado,

Jeff