Limoges…

Famous worldwide for production of fine china, Limoges sprawls along both banks of the Vienne river about eighty kilometers north of us. It is within comfortable striking distance thanks to the superb French highway that eases northerly from Brive La Gaillarde through the lush green hills of the neighboring Limousin region.

If you like china designs – and we do - Limoges is mecca. We have three different sets; a mid-19^th century pattern with gilt borders and pale grey scenes of French fishing villages that I bought in Bermuda, another of the well known ‘Barbeau’ (Cornflower) design that was popular at the end of the 18^th century, and a 1930s production with exotic birds that we mix with an old Italian Ginori pattern.

Francesco has a family connection to Limoges as his grandparents lived there after the war and his mother had her high schooling in the convent of the Sisters of Nevers perched above the Vienne. Because his nonna Anna never found a house she liked well enough to buy in the city, the whole family – six in all – lived for a number of years in a suite of rooms in the Hotel Central.

We visited Limoges a few years ago to tour its outstanding porcelain museum but Sunday we trekked there for the once-monthly puce de la cité – a giant flea market that saturates the snaking passageways of the town’s medieval heart. It took us over two hours to thread our way through hundreds of booths crowding both sides of the narrow streets, only pausing at noon to sit in an outdoor stand where Francesco gobbled a dozen fresh oysters and I ate local sausages broiled on a charcoal brazier.

What good hunting, what triumphs, what treasures!

After searching for months, we finally found a large iron lantern to hang beside the front door of the guest house, and were also able to buy two Victorian brass branch lights for the kitchen there, a small brass lamp with a glass globe shaped like a stylized pinecone to adorn the upstairs landing, and four art deco hanging light fixtures in pale tan and brown marbleized glass that we will use, two each, in the bedrooms of that same house.

Fortunately, in addition to being a master at bargaining and dickering for good prices, Francesco is also adept at rewiring and repairing lamps, lights, and various other electric gizmos – a craft, for good reasons, I shy from.