We don’t have many off-days on this tour, so when the folks at Lancaster Arts Hotel told me they have Complimentary BIKES and it’s a town MARKET DAY I knew exactly what I wanted to do with this one!

Also, I was hungry.

We’d left NY around 2AM, traveled through the night on the tour-buses and then arrived here just a little before 7AM.  So I ate the hotel’s continental breakfast (which really was continental – by which I mean it reminded me of breakfast spreads in Germany with a variety of fruits and cereals – no soppy pseudo-croissants here!)

Then I went back to bed.

So when I woke up again around 11:30, I was rarin’ for fruits and vegetables, which was how I learned about both the Central Market and the best way to get there – a bike – compliments of the hotel!

Below: Self-portrait with bike, lunch sack and map  – oh, such happy things to have!

The hotel bikes have fat tires and fat seats (ahhhh!), baskets, helmets and locks.

I rode my bike down Prince Street, then followed directions from helpful, friendly  local folks and found my way to Central Market…

… where I bought myself a lunch that is rivaled only by the single best bite of food I ever had (Cheese and bread followed by red wine, in a hotel room – October 2008 on Market Day in Arles, France, as distinct from my life’s greatest sip of soup, which was 2017 in Brittany, as opposed to my greatest ever cup of tea, just outside Dinan, France in March 2000, my greatest – and only delicious – bite of Tiramisu in Germany in Summer 1991 … I could go on)

See my Central Market Treasure below — and note I took this photo after I got back to the hotel. There were originally THREE containers of figs.

Only two made it back unscarfed.

TIP OF THE MORNING: From the Linden Dale Farms goat-cheese people who sold me spectacular fresh Chevre and suggested I try it with figs … Yuuuuummmmm!!!!

When I went back to thank them,  they told me all about their farm and their goats, including how goats are “browsers” not “grazers” and I made a little video so you can meet these  who run a 7th generation family farm and make the best cheese I’ve had outside of France! Below is the video, And here’s a link I found about one of their cheeses at the Madame Fromage blog , and wonderful pictures of their goats at Melody McFarland’s blog

On the way home, I got to see the famous Lancaster Public Pianos…

And finally … Lancaster Arts Hotel currently holds my personal award for best in-room coffee service, which includes a pot (a POT! Not just cups!), two substantial-sized mugs, enough creamer, a minimum of plastic waste per cup … and even though I couldn’t understand the picture-directions on the coffeemaker (which is the case with every coffeemaker … OK, every picture-direction I’ve ever seen), I was actually able to brew a cup pot of coffee without having to call for hotel help.

This is what I call a good day off!