To Barcelona for Alastair

The few days between returning from our trip exploring Cathar country to the north, and heading south to meet up with Alastair in Barcelona sailed by. Saturday night was rather a delight for us. Now we are one of the regulars at Bar Pablo we were invited to its free Xmas celebration with food and drink put on by the bar. We had a very enjoyable evening and got an extra hug from Bruno, the proprietor.

On Sunday there was a special Christmas market, and even carol-singing by a group of English ex-pats. A bit odd we had to come to France to hear English carol-singing.

Christmas is way quieter than normal at Bar Pablo, now closed until mid-January

The big event of the week was of course the trip to Barcelona to pick up Alastair on Wednesday. We took another different route down - if you don't take the toll-roads, there are at least three routes which all take much the same time, and we've been mixing and matching to see more of Catalonia. This time we turned right at Figueres to take the road for Besalu, a gorgeous mediaeval town. If we were ever to live in Spain, a town like Besalu would have to be our choice. It is so demonstrably old and full of history. Quite different to Céret. No trees for a start, but lovely paved squares, and there must be a university or something similar near as there are plenty of student-age people around, something we don't see in Céret. Prices are well down on France - coffees are closer to €1, and a bag of pastries would be only 2/3rds the cost. And you can get entirely chocolate-coated croissants! What more could you ask for?

We started our Barcelona stay with, of course, a trip to Ikea to stock up on a few things that needed replacement. A nice easy transition from our pre-booked Barcelona long-stay carpark (€7 vs 20 in the council ones) to our AirBnB apartment in the old city - a single 15 minute hop on the metro. The apartment is very handily located in the middle of a nice old area with minimal traffic. We filled in some of the time from arriving at 4:30 to Alastair's arrival at 9pm by wandering around getting our bearings.

The next morning we went for a long walk down to the waterfront, our first time there. It's such a lovely generous space, though very deserted at this time of year. Lunchtime rolled around, and we were looking for a place to appease our hunger when we were adopted by a local man. We spent some time talking in gibberish Spanish, before he led us to what is presumably one of his lunch haunts - Nass. It turned out to be just what we needed, a good hearty lunch on a bit of a grey old day. The weather turned wetter, so we had to give our walk away and headed gently back into the city.

Having had a good lunch, we didn't need too much for dinner, so had a delightful tapas/pintxos feast at Bilbao Berria. Great range of food all at €1.65 - they just collect the sticks and count them afterwards. Most enjoyable and a clever concept well carried out.

Our second day was spent just wandering through Barcelona, enjoying the streets and buildings. It's a beautiful city, ideally suited to just passing time. Our previous visits have been a rush from one sight to another, so it was very pleasant having time to absorb the city itself. We ended up at the Modern Art museum at 5pm, but just didn't have the oomph to go in and check it out.

Evening light on Gaudi's Casa Mila

Our AirBnB hosts required us out at 10:30am, so that we did, taking our bags back to the car. Alastair was meeting a friend (he seems to have one in every significant city as a result of his international life) while we headed towards Montjuic. With a bit if shopping on the way, we ran out of time, and we all reassembled at the car for the trip back.

We wanted to show Besalu to Alastair, so stopped there on the way home for a hot chocolate (excellent) and a quick look at the gorgeous mediaevalness of it all.

Cathar Mini-Break

We're just back from a mini-break of 2 nights away in Cathar country. What a buzz. The Cathar castles being so close was one of the many reasons we liked the look of Céret as a base, but it's taken us nearly two years to actually to get inside them, though we have admired them from afar several times.

On Thursday we hopped in the car and took off north. It was only 75 kilometres to where we were basing ourselves for the Thursday and Friday nights, so we had the luxury of plenty of time to get there. The area we were heading to, the Corbières, is pretty much due west of Perpignan, and we started by visiting the little hermitage chapel of Nostra Senora de Pena. This was a sweet little chapel up a steep path. Steep paths are something you need to get used to in Cathar country!

We hadn't got away early (nothing unusual there!) so next stop was lunch. At this time of year many places are closed, but Le Relais de Corbières was open, and gave us an excellent meal of warming Catalan fare - escalivade and boudin blanc, then roasted pig's cheek and white beans. Joue de porc sounds much better than pig's cheek I suppose. As is often said, the roadside eateries of France do have some of the best food.

Friends had driven the Gorge de Galamus and said it was great, so we made sure of following it. This is a gorge which crosses through the long ridge on which the Cathar castles of Peyrepertuse and Queribus are perched. It is spectacularly narrow, winding, rocky and overhung. We won't look at Hawk's Crag with quite the same eyes again.

Halfway along is a little hermitage glued somehow on to, and under, the rocks of the gorge.

However all these sights were just the appetiser for today's main course, the castle of Peyrepertuse. I'd have to rank this among the best places I've been, anywhere, ever. The location is astounding, being right up on the top of a brutal narrow rocky ridge, with steep drops on all sides. It must have been near impossible to build, and fairly horrible to live in at times, with the tramontane wind blasting it often and viciously. Our timing meant we arrived there with the sun low and giving it a lovely glow against the dark surrounds.

Having said oooh and aaah sufficiently, we headed away a few kilometres to our B&B lodgings at Cucugnan, where our host was very pleasant and welcoming. It is well past the end of the season now, so most of the sights are open with restricted hours, most of the accommodation is closed up, and many of the restaurants too. In our place we were the first guests since October.

Thankfully the next morning dawned bright and clear with just a little low early morning fog to burn off. We set off on foot from Cucugnan on the walk up to our next castle - Queribus. Like Peyrepertuse, these "Cathar" castles were built to defend the then border between France and Aragon, and only later some of them became refuges for the Cathars against the Crown and the church of France. Queribus was the last stand of the remaining Cathars after the greatest part of them were besieged and immolated at Montsegur. As with Queribus, the castle is on a rock, well proud of the ridge, with 360° views from the Pyrenees to the south and the Aude to the north.

The Pyrenees to the south, with wind-formed hillocks in the foreground

Queribus was another amazing castle, though not perhaps quite as stunning as Peyrepertuse. Thankfully the government or the EU is putting money into restoration and conservation, though notably not into interpretation panels. The same places in New Zealand would be rather better described.

The landscape in the area is amazing. It is very harsh, dry, rocky and wind-blasted. The valley below is covered in strange little hillocks which are tear-drop shaped due the the powerful tramontane which blows frequently with great force from the north-west.

On our final morning, we continued our loop to visit the Chateau d'Aguilar, another hilltop castle, but somewhat smaller and less imposing. We found ourselves in the middle of a large hunt. Little white vans parked everywhere, men (always men) in dayglo jackets and hordes of barking dogs. Later on we passed a large group cooking something up, we imagine a sanglier, and passing the time of day at the end of a hunt.

The last stop on this trip was a real disappointment. We thought we should visit the Musee de Tautavel, the so-called European Centre of Prehistory. It was set up in 1979, and it doesn't appear anything has been changed or updated since. Hard to follow, with tired old audio-visuals, and curling faded photographs. The last room was more modern and was better than all the rest combined. We left feeling gobsmacked at how poor it was, considering that its subject, a huge cave inhabited since the beginning of human occupation, was really very interesting and worthy of so much more.

All in all, a most excellent trip, and one will do all over again without hesitation.

It's Properly Cold

Yes, it's definitely been extremely cold. But, according to the gossip amongst ex-pats and local French alike, we are being told that it is much colder than normal for this time of year. Apparently, the low temperatures we have been having are more typical for January than the end of November/early December (and then only for a few days). So, it seems we have been freezing our butts off in an atypically cold winter here. Still, the sun has been shining, its been day after day of clear blue skies, and we haven't had any rain in weeks (in fact we've only had about three days of rain since we returned from Provence in September). The days really have been pretty magical, with snow on Canigou as the backdrop to our view from Céret.

Regardless of the cold, the council workers are still out in force by 8am each day. The job of blowing all the fallen leaves into piles and sweeping them up is a real mission, and there are still quite a few leaves left to fall from the trees. All the planter boxes have had a new round of geraniums planted in them, and they make a lovely show of colour. We have woven some red Xmas tinsel around our balcony rails to add a splash of colour to our own building.

The Christmas decorations are also up around town - lots of lights, lots of small real pine trees spraypainted white are tied up against rubbish bins, signposts and other street furniture around the main streets, shop windows are adorned with all things Christmassy and generally the place has a wintry Christmas glow to it. I'd love to get up to Montpellier or some bigger place to see their Christmas decorations but we might just run out of time before the 25th.

The days are racing by at a ridiculous speed. We are hoping to do a 2-3 day loop trip around the Foix/Ax-les-Thermes area towards the end of next week if we can. Everyone says it is just spectacular country, and you can also jump in the open air thermal pools in the main street of Ax-les-Thermes. There is also the odd Cathar castle we would love to check out while in the area.

We are keeping up our long walks and are just back today from a short walk (2 hours) from Le Perthus on the nearby border with Spain to Fort de Bellegarde. The fort is extremely large. It sits right up on the ridge between France and Spain, above where the large viaduct now funnels traffic between the two countries. It saw plenty of action when the border was disputed between France and Spain over the last four centuries.

Fort de Bellegarde, looking from the military quarters

Looking down on the military quarters from the fort, and into Spain beyond

Gorgeous watchtower nearby. The only access is by ladder into a high window you can see.

Last Tuesday we had gone on another walk up our own valley. We peeled off the valley floor at Amelie-les-Bains and walked straight up (emphasis on the 'straight' and the 'up') a track and arrived an hour and a half later at the gorgeous little village of Montbolo high on the side of the valley. Its one and only restaurant/bar was open so we plopped down in a chair in the sun outside and supped a very welcome glass of red vine (or two). The manageress came out and had a chat. She is a Catalonian, born in a village nearer to the coast but had lived in England for nearly 30 years. She came back here when in her late 40s and now runs the only commercial outlet in this little village. It's a beautiful place, with a permanent population of perhaps 200. We will be sure to visit it again and book in for a lunch at her place. After a great chat we set off back down hill and back to the car. Yet another really interesting and different kind of walk. 

Montbolo, looking down to the plains of Roussillon

With the walk we did today, plus the walk on Tuesday and the big walk up to the tower last weekend, we are definitely getting into the habit of doing long walks. It is just too hard to stay inside for more than a few days at a time when the skies are so gorgeous. I even went for a run last week, though well togged up.

Having said that, when we are home we are both working pretty hard. John has had lots of work on, though thankfully not the really stressful changes to databases like he had been implementing the week before. Last week we went to a new Norwegian friend's (Siri) place for apero, where we met another Norwegian (Mariane) who is also a permanent resident here. Last Sat we had apero with an English woman (Liz) we have met and who had lived in NZ for many years. She has now been a resident of Céret for the last 13 years and intends to live here fore the rest of her life. Siri was also at Liz's for the evening and we will be having all three friends around to our place this Tuesday. We all go our separate ways from next week onwards for Xmas (Siri to Norway, Mariane to live in South America for 3 months), Liz to NZ for 3 weeks and John and I to Barcelona for 3 days with Alastair before coming back to Céret. We also had coffee during the week at Bar Pablo with one of the French couples we have got to know so we feel as though we are 'mixing it' quite well at the moment. Our first French friends have just rung and asked us to come to dinner when Alastair is with us. They are keen to meet him.

The photo below shows the typical damage done by sangliers (wild pigs) rooting in the hillsides. We have seen this everywhere on our walks, some very very close to the edges of towns or villages, and many very fresh. There must be a massive sanglier population around here, even with the annual 'La Chasse' when every man and his dogs head into the hills to hunt them down.

Ground dug up by sangliers

More news - yesterday was also a goodie because we sold the scooter. We've had it advertised in the French version of classified ads and have had lots of nibbles but every one fell through without anybody actually arriving in Céret to see the bike. However, the guy who turned up yesterday came up trumps and went away a happy fellow. We now have cash in hand instead of a scooter in much need of a good home. It's been really odd how the French don't bother to follow up, and won't even respond to emails or texts asking if they are still coming. Face to face, or in cars, they are so polite.

Stress and Destress

The week started off very well, with another dinner out with our French friends following the Bataille de Boulou walk. Again a multi-course extravaganza and a late night.

Then the problems started. Major issues with work, with systems becoming unstable on a client's site. It took me several nasty high-pressure long-hour days to get to the bottom of the issues, but it appears the end result is a system that is working better than beforehand. There was even a possibility I would have to return temporarily to NZ. Not a lot of fun, but assuming it remains as solid as it now appears, a good result. It brought home the difficulties and dangers of being one person supporting a major system 24/7 from the other side of the world, and that this is ultimately unsustainable for me. We are making plans to change things when we are back in New Zealand as the current situation isn't tenable.

8.15am, 14.2 inside, -1.2 outside. Brrrrrrr.

Speaking of the other side of the world, here's a random little fact. If you dig directly through the Earth from Céret, you end up in the sea only some 350km off Kaikoura. It's drier here though! This week has not seen any lift in temperatures. We haven't seen double figure temperatures for a fortnight now. Still lovely and fine, in fact it is very like a Nelson winter, but less rain and more wind at the moment. Canigou has a lovely thick coat of snow, and the ski-ing up at Font-Romeu is under way.

With the immediate worries of work out of the way for a bit, we needed to get out, so on Friday filled our backpacks up with lots of warm gear, downloaded a walking route from Banyuls to La Tour de Madeloc (650m above Banyuls), and set off to the coast.

What a great walk. Initially through acres and acres of vineyards (Banyuls is known for its dessert wines), becoming increasingly steep and rocky. Fascinating how they were set out and serviced, with sloped tracks and water collection. It still feels odd knowing you are walking on tracks that have been used for centuries, past stone walls that could be any age at all. It makes you acutely aware of how young New Zealand's built environment is. There is basically no land anywhere near here that hasn't seen the effects of man for many centuries. The larger trees are mainly cork oaks, or more recently, groves of chestnuts. We wonder what the "natural" vegetation might have been, but man's efforts have been there so long that "natural" has lost its NZ meaning.

Yes, that's the tower we are aiming for on top of the distant knob!

Next we climbed above them to a fort, and finally La Tour de Madeloc. The latter was one of a chain of watch towers dating from the 13th century and the Mallorcan kings. Stupendous views, and as expected, stupendous winds at the top. We couldn't stay long admiring the view, it was just too bitter, but what a buzz.

We are loving it here. We feel very privileged to be able to do these amazing walks in such interesting country, and that the weather lets us do it even if it is pretty bitter. It's a bit odd - we rarely did walks like these in Nelson - but we are finding the combination of sightseeing, exercise, scenery and history irresistible. We've now got a repertoire of half a dozen decent walks, each of totally different character. It's also been really good to get a deeper understanding of what makes this region tick, and what battles have ebbed and flowed across the land in the past. We love being at the foot of the Pyrenees with Canigou looming up behind us, and equally, having the coast only half an hour away. It seems silly to say it, but we can't wait to get back next year!

We continue to broaden our circle of friends, this time north to Scandinavia with a couple of ex-Norwegian women who live here year-round. We have been round long enough now that we are clearly becoming part of the town, and feel like we belong rather than are just summer visitors. All the same, another winter here does not rank high on our priorities due to the cold. A more sunny (we get no sun in our apartment in winter) and insulated house would make a difference.

We gave ourselves Saturday off, but woke up to such a perfect clear day again on Sunday that we just had to go out for a smaller walk. Most of our walks have been around the 12km mark, normally of an up and back loop format, rising to some 400-600m. Today was a more level walk (though lots of little steep climbs) along the coastal track from Le Racou beach to Collioure for lunch, then return. About 7km and in very strong winds. No cobwebs left on us for sure!

It seemed like it was time to revisit the old French favourite, moules frites, this time with a saffron basil cream sauce.

On the way back we detoured to follow up on a sign showing some interesting carving that we must have driven past 20 times and had never made the effort to see. The old (founded around 800AD) Abbey of St Genis des Fontaines turned out to be lovely.

We find we far prefer the more austere abbeys to the more formal, fancy and over-decorated churches. This one was interesting - the gorgeous Romanesque cloister in the centre had been broken down and sold in 1923, but in the 70s it was all recovered from individuals and the Louvre vaults to be completely restored.

Tramontane

National Silly Hat Day?

This last week we had had the legendary tramontane wind blowing fiercely through Ceret. It literally means 'across the mountains', and as the mountains are now thoroughly snowy, it arrives here well chilled. It's also averaging around 60kmh, so it's having quite an effect. Temperatures are struggling to reach 10, and are getting down towards zero at night.

On Sunday the long-awaited new fountain was inaugurated by the mayor. It is simply superb. We imagine it cost well into 6 figures, as people have been working on it for months, but in our opinion it is well worth whatever it cost. According to the far-too-long speeches, it pays homage to sardanes dancing, Picasso, the peak of Canigou, and the waterways through the town.

The cold has made getting out a well-wrapped affair, but we are still trying to make sure we walk at least once a day. Yesterday we went overboard and did a 2½ walk around the 1790s battlefields of Le Boulou. Still very cold, and certainly very windy, but we enjoyed the walk immensely. It traces the Battle of Le Boulou from 1793 when the Spanish tried to take advantage of the problems after the French Revolution to claim some extra territory. The French finally managed to repel them after a year's brutal fighting, with a decisive battle taking place on this site.

See the snow behind Karen

Having our fill of (very) fresh air, we had another French meal tonight at some friends. As ever, multiple courses and lovely food. We are both improving with our French conversation. Speaking only French (almost all the time) on our long walks is paying off, as we are much quicker picking up the language and speaking it back.

Work is going well. I'm over the worst of it and can relax a bit again. So much so that we are thinking about our next mini-trip away - perhaps across the northern face of the Pyrenees taking in some thermal springs. Karen has made some major choices regarding her book, and is now emphasising the northern end of immigration, minimising the NZ end, making it more of a travel book. She will include some of our own adventures while visiting the places we have researched overseas.

Winter Has Arrived

Yes, it had to happen. And it did. Three days ago winter arrived with a vengeance. The temperature has dropped dramatically and we've had a lot of rain. The skies are supposed to clear on Wednesday but the temperatures will drop again, to a daytime high of about 7 or 8 degrees. We don't really mind the change in weather, though it is obviously very early days yet! It is lovely snuggling up into warm merino, donning thick jackets and walking the 40 steps to Bar Pablo where we strip off our outer layers again! No, really, we still want to get out and about on our walks, runs and general meanderings, but will just have to wear a number of layers that we can strip off when we get hot. Apparently Céret typically gets snow on the ground once or twice during winter. Last year there was none but four years ago there was a metre. 

Our last week has been very social. Yesterday was particularly crazy. We met up for lunch at a little nearby village restaurant with an English couple who live in a very remote enclave further up our valley. They live here permanently and are an excellent source of information about the region. Next we called in on a lovely French couple who we have become good friends with. In the evening we had a farewell drink with some Aussie friends who are going back home but will be out again next May. 

Now that the town is quieter, with all the tourists and 'fair weather' English residence departed, the locals are out and about more, or at least are more obvious. We see new faces at Bar Pablo now and are getting to chat with some new French locals, along with a smattering of Scandinavians and English who are permanent residents here. We are thoroughly enjoying getting to know more locals but also the 'cut and thrust' of conversation with the ex-pats, who are typically retired professionals, well travelled and with an interest in all things around them. We have been invited to a New Year's Eve party with a group of three English couples, all very good company. It will be at the home of the couple we had lunch with yesterday. It is a 40 minute drive to their place, well up into the Pyrenees foothills, where they are one of only four houses in amongst the trees. It is a stunning setting, but too remote to tempt John and I, even though one of the houses is for sale.

Our friends live in an old villa in the very centre of the photo, i.e. very remote.

We made one giant step forward yesterday in terms of finishing off the renovations on this place. After waiting a number of months, our builder finally turned up to lay the tiles on our bathroom floor. We bought the tiles last year and I've been itching to get them down. We are thrilled with the result - large rectangular charcoal tiles instead of a horrible beige and white wavy pattern on smaller square tiles. While the builder was cutting the very tricky pieces to fit around the stand for the hot water cylinder he also cut a few odd sized tiles that we needed to complete the edging above our benchtop. We can now go ahead and finish that off. 

We've also decided what to do with the two lovely chunks of wood that were cut out of our new benchtop to make way for the sink and cooktop. We have taken them to the local joiner and he will cut and glue them into a large cheeseboard/table top and two small footstools for John and I to use when working at our computers.

Smartphones and Walks

This time, I am going to have a bit of a rant about how good a smartphone can be when you are travelling. For some time I resisted buying a smartphone, thinking my lovely slim little Nokia (very small, but very good for playing music) was the bee's knees. Finally I succumbed and bought a smartphone, and have certainly not regretted it. This year I have a Samsung Galaxy S3, not the latest phone, but pretty good all the same.

This is the list of applications that we use frequently...

• Camera - a phone in your pocket means you still have a camera for those shots you didn't expect to take, and for quick copies of shop hours, or town maps, or a wine label you want to remember.
• Gmail - most towns have one café where you can get free wifi and catch up with what's what.
• Contacts - all the names, numbers and addresses we need, all on hand.
• Google Translate - offline translation to and from as many languages as you load, always useful.
• Phone and Messaging - yes, modern phones can still do this.
• Google's My Tracks - maps the walks you do, and better still, you can load into it walks you want to do. As we've said, French track marking is not up to DoC standards, and being able to compare your current position with a track you have loaded into the phone is vital at times. More below...
• Google Maps - load it with offline street and road maps for where you are going. Great when you are in a town and need to find your way about, - the little blue dot is you!
• TripAdvisor - where's a good place to eat or stay? TripAdvisor will tell you.
• Google Drive (or DropBox or others) - Load a folder of useful documents on your PC, and it magically appears in the web and on your phone - great for scans of tickets, passports and whatever.
• Google Keep - sticky notes. We have ones for our shopping list, shop hours (a big issue in France), and places people tell us about in passing.
• News apps - Stuff, NZ Herald, Engadget - for whiling away time when you have a few minutes to spare.
• Kayak - all our bookings automatically appear in Kayak, great for keeping track of when you are due where. And you can book using it.

We've spent quite a bit of time this week helping a Perth couple set up the apartment they bought some months ago. They arrived last Sunday, finalised their house purchase on Monday, but Marie-Louise then got a nasty bug which laid her low for the next 3 days. I spent most of Wednesday out and about with Richard helping him get things sorted while Marie-Louise recovered. Thankfully she's come right now, and they are rapidly filling up their new village house with all the myriad things you need. We remember doing the same, but we had the luxury of time on our side.

Back to smartphones, we've been wanting to expand our repertoire of walks beyond Les Hauts de Céret and l'Ermitage de San Ferreol. The biggest problem is with getting lost. We've had several abortive walks where we've got partway in only to find the trails seem to disappear and we have had to backtrack. I did a bit of searching on the internet, and there are myriad sites where people have done walks and saved the GPS tracks to the internet. The best I have found is WikiLoc, and I downloaded a few of the 100s of potential walks and rides that looked promising. Pop the track on your phone and you can see exactly where you are on the trail, even a few metres out shows up well. This means you can head out knowing you will be able to find and complete the walk, something that has eluded us all too often.

On Thursday we had a superb walk up in the hills above Maureillas. We had a couple of booklets that told us how to get to the Dolmens of Suireda, but the track was all too briefly described. Having the track on the phone was a good move! The track went up into the hills, quite well-marked compared with many and we found our way up quite easily. A bit short of 2 hours later, we reached the dolmens - Bronze Age tombs consisting of heavy stone slab walls, with another over the top as a roof. Really quite special.

We picnicked at the dolmens, then headed back down. The normal route was a simple loop, but the one I had downloaded let us go back via a different loop, following the irrigation canal that we suspect must start way up our valley, flow through Céret, then keep heading down north to the plains.

We would have had no hope of following the trail without the GPS-based map on the phone, which was so accurate you could walk 5 steps and see that you were on the track, or off it. Walking beside the canal was just brilliant, and knowing now how to use these downloaded tracks opens up a whole new world of walks and rides for us.

Having enjoyed this walk so much, we went on another on Saturday. We'd been to Cap Bear in 2009, but the wind was so strong we could only just stand up. Much more pleasant this year, and we were able to enjoy the walk properly.

Fortifications on the Cape

Nice little stone-built shelter

We were on a roll with walks now, so found another for Tuesday, this time up our valley. One of the enjoyable things about walking here is that you have the added dimension of history. Almost every walk goes to, or passes by, some old or ancient structure. It's a good feeling knowing you are walking in the footsteps of thousands of farmers or pilgrims or soldiers from the past. The walk took us up above Arles-sur-Tech to a Vauban battery from 1670, to a restored 9thC chapel.

Looking over Arles-sur-Tech to Canigou, the revered mountain of the Catalans

Lovely tracks

It's well and truly autumn here

The track led up through lovely rocks, then countless chestnut trees, no doubt deliberately planted centuries ago for the food they provide.

Up at the top is a Vauban-built battery from 1670 which saw action in the French-Spanish war of that period. The 360° views were just outstanding, it being a perfect clear autumn day. Next stop was the perfect little chapel looking back over the Roussillon Plain.

It was our best walk yet, but rather sad, as I lost Karen. The chestnut leaves just got deeper...

and deeper....

and finally Karen disappeared completely...

Hopefully she will find her way home sometime.

Wanderings

The Saturday morning market once again turned into a meet-fest and we ended up chatting with Wally and Ellen for ages. By the time we got back home for lunch it was too late to head out on the 2.5hr+ walk we had planned, though the wonderful weather still beckoned us to stay outdoors. We ended up driving to the next village (Maureillas) which we have never actually explored before. We had a good wonder around and finally got to visit the cork museum which I've been keen to do for ages. Because we have seen so many cork trees on our walks, many of them showing the dark red inner core on their trunks where the outer cork has been harvested, we were keen to find out more about the process. It was very interesting, especially the video, even though it was all in French. Both of us were intrigued to discover that the corks are actually punched out of the cork trunk horizontally, rather then from the outside of the trunk in towards the centre of the tree as we had always imagined. Some massive wooden wine barrels in the basement of the museum completed a pretty impressive display.

Huge wine barrels at the cork museum

Next stop was a drive-through another nearby village, again not yet explored, then home for a verre du vin rouge (glass of red wine). Sunday was supposed to be the day of our postponed walk, but it was pretty cloudy and certainly uninviting to head into forests and explore new terrain so we had a lazy day. Mid afternoon was a Sardanes performance, the first for a while, so we had a look-see.

Monday was a slightly more energetic day. After our morning run we drove into Perpignan and did the round of builder's shops looking for a new door to replace our front door (so it can open on the opposite side), managed to find some hiking boots for me at a sports shop, and squeezed in a haircut at a place next to the Auchan supermarket.

On the way home John decided to divert off the main route to visit Bages, a small town where Wally and Ellen lived for 12 years. Starved of a coffee all day we soon retired to the only cafe open, which turned out to also be the local bar and betting shop. Soon in walked a gent and two women, all of whom were intent on finding a racing paper so they could get some information about the upcoming Melbourne Cup. Of course we got talking to them and found out that the older couple were NZ & Irish but live in Bages. The woman had lived in Auckland for many years and brought her family up there. The younger woman was her daughter, and had just arrived with her husband to visit them. They had just come from Avignon where they had watched the Kiwis League team thrash the French. They are following the Kiwi rugby league team on their current world tour. and so are about to leave for the UK to see the next match. They didn't even know (or care) that the All Blacks are playing the French in Paris this weekend! Can you believe it??