Troyes

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On the last day of our 21 day train ticket, we headed off to do some serious shopping in Troyes. We hopped on the train for the hour or so ride over to Troyes, and arrived to some rainy weather. We started off having a look at some churches, which were beautiful (one in particular which was built around 1100 and took our breath away), but unfortunately we had arrived at lunchtime and didnt get to have a look at a lot of them. And after a little while the rain turned to hail, and the streets became incredibly slippery and hazardous. We decided to forego the churches (since we had already seen a whole lot anyway) and hopped on the bus to head out to the shopping malls/outlet stores. And there were a lot of these. The one complex that we went to had at least 5 buildings, and there were many more like it. However, not all of them meant outlet stores in the sense that we use the word here in NZ, they were pretty much the same price and range that we had seen elsewhere in Paris and all over France. We did however come across the occasional bargain, which made the day worthwhile. After having a wander around the largest building (and not buying anything) we fortified ourselves with some McDonalds for lunch (as the only other food place within walking distance was a scummy little sandwich store, i think McDonalds had bought the rights to be the major foodplace there or something) and we discovered the French habit of opening the doors when you are mopping the floors (even if it is -4 degrees outside). Ridiculous. We then had some successful shopping where i bought a warm jacket to replace my old Warehouse one that had accompanied me along the rest of the way but which had finally given out (RIP jacket, some lucky homeless french person has it now), and various other sundry purchases. Loaden up with packages, we stocked up at the local produce market (which was amazing) and hopped back on the train home to indulge in a very french meal of baguette and ham and cheese and salmon, yum.

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