I hear only my own footsteps on empty, silent streets. That’s what I love about exploring the neighborhoods of a city on a Sunday morning.
There’s no rush to capture these wonderful moments. Others are still in bed or sipping coffee over the Sunday paper. There’s time to let the sun rise high enough to slide over and illuminate the details of each rooftop . It is the only time when it is safe to wander down the middle of the streets with my head turned upwards. There is a rhythm to the peacefulness that pulls me here or there to uncover the architecture and history of a place. This particular Sunday I am in Bordeaux.
At first the streets are completely silent. I wander under the gaze of the sculpted faces that Bordeaux is famous for. They grin, grimace, smile, laugh, and leer down at me from their window lintels. There is beauty in their sparkling stone eyes.
Twice I pass the notes of piano practice floating out of windows. Once the notes of a whistler. Never a single voice until I emerge from the neighborhoods onto the esplanade of the river. For I had noticed a trickle of people all heading in the same direction. I let my ambulation be influenced by their anonymous sort of Sunday morning pilgrimage. I start to make turns here and there following whatever caught my eye, but also letting myself be swept into the flow towards the wakening morning.
Here on the riverside the playground was filling up with little ones who have no idea what Sunday morning means.
The market vendors were already putting the final touches on their mouth watering offerings for Sunday lunch. A couple of couples were quietly enjoying their Sunday oysters with a glass of white wine while watching the strong flow of the mighty Garonne river.
Ahh, Sunday was warming up and getting going.
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