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Published: June 14th 2011
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It was a relief to arrive at our house in the South of France, both after the busy few weeks travelling and in London, and the challenging drive from Carcossonne negotiating detours and narrow alley like roads through tiny villages. We were soon relaxed after finding a small grocery shop open that sold bread, cheese and wine, - the essentials to keep us going until we fully settled in. The house met our expectations with spacious rooms, and good sized deck overlooking the pool, to enjoy the sun.
Our first couple of days were spent catching up on sleep, laundry, food supplies and getting our bearings around our little village. It’s a tiny village with only a small grocery (selling everything) a tabac (magazines, book shop), baker, butcher, pizza, pub and post office, and at least half a dozen wineries. The surrounding villages are a few kilometres away in each direction, and a big modern supermarket about two kilometres away. Everything in between is pretty much grape vines with the odd field of wheat.
We’ve been enjoying evening walks amongst the vineyards each night. Paths head off in every direction and circle back around sooner or later. It’s an
interesting landscape as quite hilly wild and scruffy, with lots of old stone walls, wild poppies growing up everywhere (amongst other weeds), and some grape vines even look abandoned.
Our first day trip out was to the beach (30 min drive) as it promised to be the hottest sunniest day of the week. Valgras beach was huge. There was permanent playground equipment installed on the sand, volleyball nets, fixed pathways, and down one end were all the fairground attractions (closed much to Sophias disappointment). The water wasn’t so warm and there was a bit of a cool breeze so we didn’t lay out topless like the others there. We wandered through the tacky market type shops in the streets then moved on to try another beach. Serignan was a bit more rugged and wild apart from the restaurant sited on the sand. It’s not yet been beachy enough weather for us with the temperatures hovering around the 20 deg mark. Alison is hoping it improves before she leaves us at the end of this week. It’s still hot enough to enjoy a wine and meal out on the deck (when its not raining).
A two hour drive another
day took us to Millau and its famous viaduct. It was absolutely huge and great to see from every angle. Our first view was looking out over the valley across the old stone village of Millau with the bridge in the distance and a backdrop of mountains. It was hard to appreciate the full scale of it as it looked quite delicate from this view point. It is actually over 2km long and higher than the Eiffel Tower. We lunched and browsed the shops in Millau, with Alison and I both buying some leather gloves which Millau is famous for (we discovered once there). Going home we stopped at a closer up viewing point before driving over it (6.40 euro), then taking the highway shaving 30 minutes off our village hopping mountain crossing trip there. It was definitely worth the trip to see (although the girls would argue with that). I loved its simplicity and modern design set against the ancient environment, and its scale is impressive yet a perfect fit for the setting.
Our third day trip in the week (we don’t want to be to rushed) was to Carcassonne and its historic walled castle/village. It was an
impressive construction and nearly fully intact but a bit too touristy – a bit like Venice. No one actually lives there and every single shop is for the tourists only. In spite of that we liked the shop,s particularly the house ware type ones in the French country provencal style. I’ve come away with a queen sized bed quilt which we’re yet to work out how best to transport home.
It was sad to see Alison go at the end of the week after having two full weeks with her and/or Rhonda. So we are now back to our family of four, and getting on with the serious business of living the French life, some school work, and of course lounging by the pool in the sun.
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