Paris

This entry is not about Paris at all, because the closest we got to Paris was the airport. But since this was our final destination, other than of course good old C.A.N.A.D.A., the title seemed appropriate.
We were gone from Nevers by 9:30 and in for a fairly dull, two hour drive – dull by yesterday’s standards, not by staying alive on French roads standards. In those terms driving here is NEVER dull.

Since we had lots of time, we thought we’d make a little detour to Fontainebleau, yet another piece of evidence proving that the French Revolution really WAS necessary. This royal retreat probably has more buildings on the site than Versailles, but with not quite the decadence. We took an extensive walk about the grounds, but tried to avoid the horde of Japanese tourists, so passed on the interior tour.

Back on the road, we made it to the hotel, once again with Emily’s intermittent help, with no problem. We opted for a little higher end place – 4 star – for our last night in France and stayed at the Millennium, located in Roissy in a community of the biggest airport hotels you’ve ever seen. Air conditioning was the best feature, since today was yet another low 30’s scorcher.

If you’ve been reading the blog, you know we’ve had a fabulous vacation. Are we ready to go home? Sure! But, what will we actually miss about France?
a) the relaxed pace
b) the care that is taken with every meal
c) the wine
d) the wine
e) the wine – am I getting monotonous?
f) the rich history and extreme geography
g) the wonderful winding roads and at the same time the amazing high speed highways
h) being together 24/7 – this is NOT sarcasm
i) my cute little Peugeot 207 SW
j) getting lots of opportunity to improve our French
This is it for another version of my travel blog. I’ve had fun writing it. And 5800 kilometres later, I hope all my readers have had fun too. See you next time!

North to Nevers

This morning we bid farewell to St. Chinian and hit the A75 Autoroute north. I've heard people complain about traveling on autoroutes, becuase you don't get to see the countryside or because they're too expensive. I can say, without a doubt, that the A75 from Beziers to Clemont Ferrand is the most awesome fast highway I have ever driven. Not only is the highway pretty new and therefore very smooth, but the scenery along its course is startlingly spectacular. It's a twisty roller coaster ride reaching altitudes of 1100 metres and the views are truely to die for. And then, just when you think it can't get any better, you hit the Millau Viaduct.

There's an auto route stop just north of the bridge with two viewing platforms and a small museum chronicling the birth and three year growth of the 800 million euro bridge. This is ONE HOT tourist attraction. It also happens to be free. The only toll we paid on this stretch of the highway, by the way, was 6 euros to cross the bridge.

We hit Nevers - a city of around 40 000 - which is around 250 kilometres from Paris, by mid afternoon. As we crossed over the Loire river I was having serious deja vu. I'm pretty sure we drove to this town when we stayed in the Loire with Tony & Jackie.

Thanks to Emily, we easily found our hotel, The Hotel de Diane which is a Best Western. After a short freshen up and respite from the heat, we ventured out for a look around town. It still hadn't cooled off much and we were sweating like pigs. I'm sorry, I was sweating like a pig. Dawn was glowing.

We found some fabulous buildings in this town and were once again amazed by the diversiy of French towns. I think we love them all!




The cathedral St. Cyr & St. Juillet - same place, duel name - had the most outstanding collection of gargoyles I have ever seen - and that includes Notre Dame in Paris. I'll include only a few in the blog. You'll have to see my book for the entire retrospective.


We had a drink in a cafe before heading off to dinner at Tomate & Chocolat - recommended by our hotel.


For 57 euros we had a fabulous prix fixe consisting of an olive & mozarella tarte, followed by two fishes for Dawn & Charlois beef for me. This is actually the best beef I've had in France. Where has it been? Dessert was a medley of chocolate, raspberry and pear delights.

We had a local pinot noir from the Charilois appelation close to here, one we've never experienced - very similar to a nice Burgundy. It would be helpful to point out at this point that although Nevers is on the Loire, they are actually a Burgundian town.

Back at the hotel Dawn was lights out while I typed away.
It was another day of wonderful French experiences and surprises!

Last day in St. Chinian

As anticipated, today was a local day, with a quick jaunt into Beziers this morning to pick up a few final goodies at Auchan. We've really gotten to know and enjoy the drive through this city. I think Beziers has become our new favourite Mediterranean city.
On the way back to St. Chinian we stopped at one of France's great inventions - an outside car wash machine that does it all, takes up very little space and does a seriously superior job compared to those in Canada. In Canada's climate, we could put one of these easily into the garage spaces now used to wash one car at a time and for same amount of money get a much better job.

Then it was time to pack and weigh - unpack, reweigh - repack, reweigh - further redistribute, reweigh - take a trip to the post office to purchase a box in which we could ship the excess home. Of course, Dawn is blaming the wine, but I know that the olive oil and table clothes nicely balance out the wine. Anyway, mission accomplished - one box for a mere 41 euros shipping sundry clothing items off to Canada! After a month in the country, we are clearly missing the 4th bag that we would usually have. As it is, we will pay extra at the airport for the third bag. C'est la vie!
Since it was another scorcher today, we hid out in Aurelie for the afternoon and before dinner, finally ventured out for a little planned walking tour about the town. This is another activity we should probably have done when we first arrived, but, at least we did it.
The walk started off in the gardens directly behind Aurelie. We strolled down the main street and into the parrish church which had in it two noteworthy items - a stone commemorating the height of the flood waters of 1875 and a restored 18th century organ. Every town seems to have an important date and the flood of 1875 seems to be the big one here.


Continuing on from the church we walked along the houses backing on the Vernazobre River and discovered that this town was originally famous for cloth manufacture. The restored and not so restored houses of the millers were found along the way.


Going deeper into this neighbourhood, we discovered some pretty fabulous estates, mostly hidden by high floral walls, but one had the gates open to give us a peek.


The walk brought us back to the plane tree lined market area close to Aurelie. We were really glad we'd ventured out into the heat for this walk. It gave us a much broader perspective of the town in which we've spent two weeks.

For our last night, we opted for dinner in town at La Caleche, immediately across the street from the Mayor's garden and a mere 100 metres from our house. Dawn started with a tomato & mozzarella salad while I had escargots. We both had grilled lamb loin chops for the main, followed by Ile flottane for me and dark chocolate ice cream with poire william sorbet for Dawn. Another memorable meal!

St. Guilhem le Desert & Abbaye de Fontcaude

Today was the last day that we thought we'd travel further afield from St. Chinian. Tomorrow is a guaranteed immediate environs day as we prepare to tear ourselves away from this idyllic location. So, we chose yet another Plus Beaux Village as our destination - St. Guilhem le Desert in the Herault River gorge. It won out over a return to Collioure - imagine! It ended up being closer then Collioure as well and by the time we hit the Herault Gorge, we knew we'd made the right choice.

By now we've driven more than one death defying gorge, but this one was pretty tame with enough road space to meet a tour bus, which is generally never a good thing.

As we walked up into town, we were first greeted by a fine view of St. Guilhem's abbey. This was another UNESCO site because of its history as a stop on the pilgrimage route from Arles to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. In ancient times this prilgrimage must have taken months. What were they thinking?

Anyway, as in most Plus Beaux Villages, this was a tourist hot spot and on this hot sunny day there was no better place to cool off than under the shade of their 155 year old plane tree in the main square. Needless to say, this is also the location of all the cafes, so this was our lunch destination for today. We both had a salad of warm duck slices with gizzards. Fabulous! I know most of you are going, YUCK, but we REALLY like this stuff!

I wonder what it's actually like to live in one of these towns. I mean, for most of the pleasant weather they'll be crawling with tourists and for the rest of the time they are very remote, with minimal services and no way to get a car to most houses. Different strokes, I guess.

On the way back to St. Chinian, we decided to visit the closest historic site to St. Chinian - nothing like leaving it until the end of our visit. This site is the Abbaye de Fontcaude, which, guess what, was also on the pilgrimage route. Fontcaude has been burned and torn down and rebuilt so many times that you lose track. It's restoration to today's standard was only in 1969.


The monks definitely chose the most amazing locations for their abbeys - generally totally secluded - and this one was no exception. The pilgrims would probably be really grateful when they found these abbeys, if they could find them. I mean, they didn't have Emily, my GPS, to help them and even with her we barely found the place.


When we got back to Aurelie, we were reluctant to open up our nice cool house, but it was too lovely on the terrace, so open up we did and spent another long evening enjoying the blue sky and the heat.

A Lesson in Vermouth

Last night, we ate out at a restaurant in St. Chinian for the first time - the Cafe de la Paix. This restaurant, right on the main road had a nice little patio out back, away from the noisy traffic. Dawn finally had her gambas flambe, while I opted for more foie gras, this time on a medallion of veal.

Today, we were in for a lesson in the manufacturing of vermouth at the Noilly Prat winery in Marseillan, which is a nice seaside village about 50 kilometres from St. Chinian.

We opted for the guided tour - in French - which took us through their various storage and blending facilities. The first thing we learned was that they use two grapes, picpoul and clairet. These wines are intiially stored in gigantic 100 year old Canadian oak vats.

Then they move the wine to the outside into smaller barrels, where the climate ages it. While walking through the barrel yard, the sprinklers came on the keep the barrels from getting too hot.

Finally the wine is moved back indoors where it is blended and the secret recipe of herbs is added. Noilly Prat makes only 3 products, dry white, sweeter red and amber, somewhere in the middle. It takes five years from when then raw wine arrives to bottling. Of course we only see the white in Ontario.
To conclude the tour we had a degustation of their products. Interestingly, there was a breathalizer in the corner of the tasting room that you were free to use - very responsible.


We stayed in Marseillan for lunch and ate at the Tavern du Port, immediately across the narrow boat dock from Noilly Prat.
Here we had some new culinary experiences starting with grilled oysters done in Noilly Prat sauce and sea snails - raw - Tony would be proud. Following that, we shared a fillet of sole - Wow! In the middle of the snails, shown below, is a dish of homemade aioli to die for.

As June slips past us, it's obvious that this area is gearing up for the coming sunseekers. For the time being, however, we have been very happy to be more or less on our own - no traffic congestion, no parking issues. By this weekend that will change dramatically. Fortunately, we'll be on our way north.

Chateaux Lastours

Yesterday may have been the first day of summer, but today did a lot to convince us that summer has indeed arrived. It was sunny and warm, but a touch of the Mistral was left so it was a perfect activity day.
Thusly, we headed to one of the last Cathar strongholds that we had not yet visited, Lastours, which is almost directly north of Carcassonne by about 30 kilometres. Unlike other Cathar castles we have visited, this site actually consists of 4 castles - Cabaret, Tour Régine, Surdespine et Quertinheux.

Apparently no one was visiting Lastours today, because we encountered very few visitors, which was nice. We have some pretty vivid memories of climbs up to other Cathar fortresses and this one actually ranked as relatively tame.

You can see that the first of the castles wasn't too too far above town. Anyway, the exercise was good for us, so we didn't whine about the climb.

From the first castle on the site, Quertinheux, the views of the other 3 were quite impressive. One little historic note about this site is that while the remainder of the Cathar nation was being obliterated from 1209 to 1210, this place actually resisted and finally capitulated in 1227.

The route up to the castles took us through a petit grotto.

Following our trek up and down Lastours, we drove a couple of kilometres to the Belvedere overlooking the four castles, which is part of the ticket to get onto the site. This is really the most impressive view of all and as usual it's better than any views within the site itself.

As is true of most Cathar sites, with the exception of Beziers and Carcasonne, Lastours was very remote, so the drive there and back pretty much ate up the day. Because we were a tad tardy getting going this morning, there was no place left open for lunch on our return. Therefore, Aurelie had to suffice and our well stocked fridge bailed us out.

Spain & the Coast

Yesterday was supposed to be windy, but infact the Mistral was howling pretty nicely today. Off we went down the autoroute to Spain with a nice tail wind. Because of this...there was no rain...on the plain...of Spain. On a stretch of highway famous for blowing cars with camper trailers off the road - this we have witnessed, but not today - it was pretty much two hands on the wheel .
As we approached Spain and a customs stop, we realized we didn't have our passports. They were safe back in St. Chinian. Fortunately we were not stopped, so on we zoomed to Figueres, where we found the home town and museum of Salvatore Dali.
This was a visit recommended by others who had stayed at Aurelie, so although we knew what we were in for, we decided to add a dash of culture to the trip.


If this is culture, show me a McDonalds. Dali's museum was even more bizarre than we anticipated. I couldn't stop laughing as we went from exhibit to exhibit. I might note that no one else in the over crowded museum was laughing - no sense of humour, these Europeans.


He certainly had a unique perspective on just about everything, including his nudes. One has to be pretty psychotic to seriously enjoy this stuff. For sure, you'll never see another exhibit like it. Maybe that's the point. But, I mean, some of the pieces! What WAS he thinking?

Nothing was really well signed in Figueres, so both finding the museum and getting out of town was a challenge. We finally called upon Emily to get us to the coastal road back to France and she came through with flying colours.
Once along the coast, we were reminded what a spectacular drive this is, on heavily winding roads that afford one amazing view after another.

For lunch we stopped at a cafe along the sea in Banyuls. While lunching, a school group gathered on the beach in front of us and went for a swim - most of them out to a diving platform. The other half of them were suited up in dry suits and preparing for a scuba lesson. We couldn't help think how none of this would happen if they were in Canada, what with all the liability crap we put up with. There was no lifegaurd in sight and indeed, the two teaachers in charge weren't even seriously watching the kids.

Of course the other element of the French beach was also in evidence. Dali's not the only one who appreciates his nudes.


Following lunch, we continued the drive down the coast, marvelling at the steeply pitched and stone wall terraced vineyards and stopping to grab quick pics of Port Vendres and Collioure. Once again, this is a fabulous part of France and it was already starting to suffer from its summer congestion. It is no wonder people flock here though. We're likely to make a return trip before we head north. So there you go.


Because we were now driving north, the wind was even wilder as we sped up the autoroute. There were no mishaps along the way and we did the Banyuls to St. Chinian route in a little over one and a half hours. The wind could die a little for tomorrow, but we ARE grateful for the sunshine.