Returns to Riverside Market and Cellar Door

It is another beautiful day in Christchurch. We decide to walk to Riverside Market. We cross Cathedral Square and walk to the riverwalk along the Avon River. It's a half mile from the hotel to Riverside Market. 

Our first trolley of this trip is the open carriage green tram. Our favorite is the blue tram.

Will they ever complete the repairs to Christchurch Cathedral? Notre Dame didn't take this long!

This is a very pretty city. It gives thanks to two devasting earthquakes that created the opportunity to rebuild an aging city into a modern city with a vibrant riverbank precinct.

The Avon River is home to the biggest ducks we have ever seen!

Note the tracks in the street running through the bollards. The bollards are there to stop vehicles. When the trolley arrives, it has the ability to lower the one in the middle of the track to allow it to pass.

We arrive at our favorite place in Christchurch: Riverside Market. The market houses small restaurants and food take-away vendors, a couple wine bars, our favorite beer bar, shops selling seafood, meat, cheese and other various products. 

Destination: Canterbury Brewer's Collective. We made multiple stops for a brew at this place on our last visit. We intend multiple stops this visit. CJ finds a good chili pilsner, milk stout, and wheat beer remotely tasting like a Belgium.

We have a good long talk with the owner Chris and one of the bartenders, Tom. Both remember us from the last visit.

For dinner we return to the Cellar Door. The owner Tim is not here for dinner service. We have two French servers. Isabelle is a stunner and hails from Aix-en-Provence. She's shocked we know so much about her home area. 

The French fellow was from Caen in Normandy. He was impressed by our story of visiting the Pegasus Bridge (think "Hold Until Relieved" from The Longest Day). The bridge is only a few kilometers north of Caen.

This place is best known for its excellent 4 -taste wine pairing flights. We begin with two light white wine flights.  We follow it with our meal and three red wine pairings and conclude with a dessert of a port pairing and a dessert wine flight.

This is a shredded zucchini salad.

There is a famous lamb in New Zealand purported to be excellent. We try it this evening. We are not impressed. We are more impressed with a potato dish we call mille fleur potatoes and the zucchini.

A very cool feature of this place is that they sell their wines at a retail (not restaurant) price for take away. We purchase five bottles, two for the trip and three to take back to Adelaide.