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Published: October 26th 2011
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Hi Everyone
Time is going quickly now - only 8 more days left of our holidays. It does seem as though I have been in France for a long time though, and we are now discussing when to come back and do the bits we missed.
We stayed a week in Léran in a lovely cottage that looked tiny from the front but was very spacious with a garden. It was a great base to explore the Pyrenees, and as we drove out of town each day, we had a lovely view of the foot of the Pyrenees. We were less than a minute walk to the local bar/restaurant which was run by a British couple. Great food (including bangers and mash) and very reasonably priced with the menu de jour (3 courses) around 13 euros. We had a good couple of meals there. We also watched the Kiwis beat us in the Rugby there Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon we drove into the Pyrenees up to Ax-les-Thermes. Great scenery with generally uninspiring towns. We also called in to the Grotte Niaux, a long cave with 25,000 year old cave paintings. Unfortunately, the cave has been visited since the 1600’s
with a huge amount of grafitti over the years, and I thought the original paintings may have been touched up a bit - no doubt there were some very old paintings but some of them looked a bit ‘cute’. The cave itself was quite interesting. On Monday we went to Mirepoix markets. Mirepoix itself is a lovely town with a pretty town square dating back to the ?13 century. The way some of the timbers are bending, I wouldn’t fancy living above the square (see photos). We also took some photos of an octopus and swordfish made of apples - Mirepoix has an apple festival once a year (which we missed) and they were in the process of dismantling them as we arrived. The markets were quite good - I preferred these over Uzes markets which were too crowded with goods generally overpriced. Monday afternoon we visited Foix which is dominated by a chateau overlooking the town. Another climb! Eating out once a day balanced with steep walks is suppose to keep the weight ratio even but I think the food is winning at the moment.
Tuesday, we visited Carcassone which was impressive looking at from a distance but
I was slightly disappointed - I’m not sure what I was expecting but as you walk into the old city, it is very similar to Mont St Michel - tacky tourist shops everywhere. The actual castle and palace is more interesting but not much in the way of historical explanations.
Wednesday was overcast with rain predicted so we decided to have a chill day. After sleeping in decided to go for a drive and ended up at Mont Segur, one of the last Cathar strongholds. The climb up to the chateau ruins was very steep and slippery and I am sure had awesome views. It is practically built on the top of a pointy mountain with straight drops, which we couldn’t see due to the fog at the top. It did give the area an eerie feel. By the time we started walking down it was really pouring so didn’t get to the museum in the town of Segur, unfortunately. This climb was the most challenging, but I think worth doing. The actual ruins are not from the Cathar times (1200’s) but ruins from, I think, the 1600’s.
The next day, fortunately sunny and crisp, was to head
to Andorra for some duty free shopping. We first went to Pas de la Casa, and as we got closer to the Pyrenees, realised it was snow at the top of the mountains due to the rain the day before. I thought, because of the fantastic weather, we wouldn’t get to see snow but as we climbed up, the temperature steadily dropped and we reached the snow line. Typical Aussie, getting excited over snow! It was minus one at Pas de la Casa. This place is strange - brightly coloured buildings that make up a very small town that is just shop after shop. (I think it is a ski resort in winter). Plenty of snow, with very slippery roads and cows wandering the streets. We shopped for quite a few hours here, buying two new suitcases to fit all our stuff in. We then headed for the capital of Andorra, called Andorra La Vella and had a wander. And we didn’t see one dog poo! Actually all of Andorra is very clean and neat, with ski resort after ski resort, built in that dark stone. Andorra is a principality like Monaco, being a tax free haven. The alcohol is
incredibly cheap - my litre bottle of Baileys cost 9 euro.
Friday we headed for the coast (Mediterranean) to a place we wanted to stay at but ran out of time - Collioure. This place is lovely, with quaint streets and old buildings on the beach. It was cool but sunny, very nice to sit outside the restaurant, sipping wine and eating canard and prawns. This is one place I would like to return to. I expect it would be crawling with holiday makers in the summer, as there are a lot of touristy-type apartments, but in late October it was very pleasant.
Saturday, we headed back to Gourdon, and are now staying in the same place when I first arrived in France. This is definitely my favourite area - I thought because it was my first port of call after Paris I was biased and my memories of it were exaggerated. But coming back and visiting some of the towns with Sean, and exploring it more thoroughly, I (we) are more convinced that this would be an area we could live in (yes, we have been looking through real estate brochures). I think it is the combination
of honey coloured buildings with their round pointy roofs, chateaux around each corner, cute little villages every few km’s, leafy forests (with great autumn colours) and just so many places to visit.
So I have waffled on a bit this time - I will talk about the last few days in this area, the Lot/Dordogne, in the next instalment. Writing this blog is a great diary for me to look back on, so I hope Im not boring everyone. Au revoir.
PS We are just about to hit 7000km on the car - quite a bit of distance in 5 weeks!
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