Viva España

One of the advantages of living here in the South of France is that we can get to the Spanish border in an hour. We took advantage of this and have just spent a few days away in Spain. Several villagers have recommended a resort called Platja d’Aro so we booked a couple of nights at the San Jorge Hotel. The hotel was lovely, with lots of facilities, which we unfortunately didn’t have time for. After checking in, we headed to the beach bar below, where we had a very pleasant lunch sitting in the sunshine.

We spent the next day walking around the town. We were very impressed with the variety and quality of shops. Yes, there were some that sold the tat that is usually found at resorts but there were also some very up-market stores. One thing that was a luxury was to buy today’s paper. In Carcassonne we are always a day behind. There was also a wide range of lively restaurants. We ate outside, watching Spaniards of all ages, promenading up and down the High Street.

One reason to go to Spain was to meet my brother and his wife who were over from England to visit the Dali museum in Figueres and Dali’s house near Cadaqués. We all stayed at Hotel Rocamar which I would definitely recommend. We had a lovely room, facing the sea where we could see the lightning flashing over the water.

We returned home via the coastal road which was very beautiful. We were quite surprised that there was no evidence of custom police at the border – mind you it was lunch-time!

Life is just a bowl of ...............

It is cherry season here in Languedoc and after much publicity in the local papers, we decided to see what happened at Fête de la Cerise in Trausse Minervois.

We arrived to the sound of a Banda playing in the village square. This was followed by speeches given by the local dignitaries. At the end of the acknowledgements, everyone was invited to the apéros, as usual, which had been donated by the local vignerons. After easing our way through the crowd, we managed to find a glass of wine, ate a selection of saucisson sec, hams and pork scratchings, all of which went very well with the variety of wines that we sampled.

The colours and smells of the fête were lovely.



There are some beautiful, little villages in the region and the fêtes that are held in them gives us an opportunity to see some some of them that we wouldn’t normally have known about.

Les Pavots

Amazing!!

Cérémonies du 8 mai

Thursday was the second of three holidays in May. This one was to commemorate VE Day. After a mass in the church, there was a procession from the Mairie to the war memorial on La Promenade. Leading the parade were the Majorettes de Montréal. Behind them came the flag-bearing dignitaries and councilors. Bringing up the rear were some children from the village school and representatives from various associations.

After the laying of the gerbe and roses, there was a fanfare followed by the National anthem. The Maire, M. Jean-Claude Pistre, then read a message from the Ministre des anciens combattants, Jean-Marie Bocquel. He finished by thanking everyone for attending and invited all to apéros (bien sûr) after watching a display by the Majorettes.

There must have been over 300 people at the ceremony. It was amazing how many people of all ages turned out for the occasion.

Fête du Travail

After a couple of days in the UK to see our daughters Sally (thanks for the B+B and suitcase) and Kate, I landed back in Carcassonne to sunshine.

We woke this morning to clear blue skies and no wind and it was amazing how many families were using their Fête du Travail to cut their grass and potter round their gardens. Richard, not wanting to be out done, cut our lawn.

After lunch we decided that we needed a bit of exercise so we searched on the web for some walks in our area and found a good site that had some in the area. We selected one and drove to Pomas, a small village near Limoux.

We went through vineyards and small copses with the most fantastic smells of gorse, pine trees and thyme. In one direction we could see the snow topped Pyrenees in the distance and the Montagne Noire the other. We could hear the sounds of bees and bells around animals’ necks. It was beautiful. I think that the countryside is probably the best at this time of year, still fresh and not dried and parched from the summer heat.