Located on the first floor of a brownstone, the shop is like something out of the film “Chocolat.” There were chocolate bars from France, Belgium and Venezuela, glass cases filled with hand-dipped truffles and Easter bunnies of every shape and size.
While there, I complimented the owner on the vintage chocolate advertisements that adorn the walls. She buys them from a company in France and mentioned traveling there once or twice a year to study the latest trends in chocolate making. What a nice life. Traveling abroad. Sampling chocolate.
After my visit, I started to crave a cozy suite in France, shopping at flea markets for antiques and sipping café au lait. My daydream continued after renting “La Vie En Rose” — a film about the life and times of French chanteuse Edith Piaf. I loved the raucous nightclub scenes, the celebratory gatherings and most especially, the styles of the ‘40s and ‘50s. Watching “La Vie en Rose” was like seeing the pages of the Anthropologie catalog come to life sans alcohol.
The visit to the chocolate shop and the film experience made me long for more than the dull brown and white landscape outside my living room window. Call it what you will — seasonal defective disorder, cabin fever, boredom — I realized I needed a change of scenery pronto.
I searched the internet for cheap flights overseas, but the price and the question of who would watch the kids while we were gone sent me packing back to reality.
How could I still have the European experience without the price tag? Quebec? New Orleans? Both trips were still out of the range of our family budget, so I settled on a day trip to Boston by train. I’d still be in New England. And yes, the weather would still be dreary, but I can be creative.
Here’s the itinerary: start the day at Tealuxe for scones and coffee. Then on to the Commonwealth Avenue Anthropologie store for an overpriced spring dress (which I can justify from the money I saved from not traveling outside of the U.S). And after that, a visit to the Isabella Stewart Gardener museum to stroll the courtyard and take in the collection of paintings, furniture, tapestries and photographs from all over the world.
Finally, I have something to look forward to — an escape from Maine, if even for a day.
Jennifer Hazard lives and writes in Yarmouth.