Les Soldes

This is Hannah in the Nice Flower Market, on a Saturday in January.

France, in its ever infinite bureaucratic wisdom, regulates when stores are allowed to hold sales events, and so the post-Christmas sales period in France is strictly monitored and controlled. There are 2 official sales periods annually in all of France. Really. One is mid-January and the other is in July. This whips people into an incredible frenzy and the lead-up to “les soldes” is full of flyers, blaring radio ads and people spending long hours over coffee, charting-up clever strategies for their attack on retail establishments.

Hannah and I decided to turn our venture into “the sales” as a day-trip and lunch opportunity in Nice, complete with leisurely train-ride along the Cote d’Azur. The day was spectacular and, after leaving the train, we headed down the main shopping street straight to the Galleries Lafayette.

Unaware of what we were up against, we managed to find a few things for Hannah in the girls’ department, but when we ventured down to men’s to find a sweater for Dave, we were up against a sea of fashion-hungry French men and their sharp-elbowed wives, who all seemed to have forgotten that this was a country of social graces.

We ducked out, had an enormous lunch on a patio outside in the sunshine, and took a walk through the old town, which is how we happened to be in the flower market, instead of trying on shoes, on that Saturday in Nice.