Blogs from Midi-Pyrénées, France, Europe - page 44

........... read more

Salut tout le monde! Je suis bel et bien rendu à destination. Le voyage c'est bien passé, l'avion n'a pas crashé! Ce fut agréable. L'arrivée à l'aéroport c'est bien passée, sauf qu'on m'a fouillé et que le détecteur n'aimait pas ma ceinture et mes bottes... m'enfin! Par la suite, tout a bien été pour le voyage. Nous étions par séries de 3 bancs, donc moi et Manuel avons fait la connaissance d'une jeune demoiselle très sympathique avec qui nous avons pu converser pendant nos 6 heures de voyage. Du reste, la bouffe était très ordinaire (President's Choice), mais les paysages magnifiques, même si la plus grande partie du voyage fut de nuit. Rendu à destination, ça a été la traditionnelle saga de la récupération des bagages qui n'arrivent jamais, mais encore une fois, nous avons survécus. ... read more

Another week, another festival. This time, in Lavelanet, to celebrate its reason for being: textiles. So the Festo des Tisserands celebrates the weavers who made their lives here through the centuries. We decided to go on the walk which allegedly follows the route taken by those who worked their cloth at Montségur and brought their goods to Lavelanet to sell. Hard graft really: it’s a 500 metre climb from the town to Montsegur, and a 16 kilometre round trip along steep rocky paths through the woods, upwards, ever upwards. Still, this was a well-publicised celebration, not yet another wearisome slog brought on by hunger and sheer economic necessity, and some 85 people joined in. So our rucksacks were carried by llamas (not exactly traditional round here, but they’ve caught on as a tourist attraction amongst walkers ... read more

Spent the morning travelling to Lourdes and arrived there at around 2pm. It was a beautiful hot day. On our way there though we stopped at a town called Pau and had some lunch and looked at a castle there, this town also had an amazing view of the Pyrenees. Lourdes is a pilgrimage town and apparently about 6 million people visit it each year. It is France´s second most popular city after Paris. We walked down to the basilica that is on top of St Bernadette´s grotto. Mum and I walked around for a while and there was also a walk up a mountain that had monuments showing the stations of the cross and Mum and I did that. Before heading back to the hotel we had an icecream and ran into Shayne and Karen, ... read more

Another week of general busyness. What to write about? Perhaps our walk to Leran, the next village along in the middle of the week. We couldn’t resist the wild cherry trees we passed, and somehow tottered home with 2 kilos which have now become jars of cherry jelly and cherry jam. Or the Rando des Artistes on Saturday. Three local villages, all on the pilgrimage route to Compostella, laid on art exhibitions, and arranged a guided walk from Vals back to the 3rd village, Manses, where we all had lunch, picnic-ing in the seats already laid out for the village's communal meal that night as part of their fête, and back to Vals again, this time via Teilhet. One of the walkers was a botanist, but even more fascinating than his observations about flowers and plants ... read more