Day Two

Our second day was a lot of fun; filled with surf and sand and… baguette and cheese. First a stop at Alain’s, for some “quick” info on trains. Well there is no quick drop-ins in France! We were offered wine or coffee…we chose coffee and got wine…the good stuff from across the street that comes by the jug (refillable of course!). We enjoyed a few glasses before heading back on the road…at 1:30 pm. We spent the rest of the day relaxing on the sand of Canet Plage, turning our bodies just often enough to avoid serious sunburns, napping, reading and jumping in the salty Mediteranian to cool off in the waves. It was so very relaxing to just hang with the French tourists at one of their hotspots. Of course that meant some great people watching too. There’s been a lot of that at all locations really.

Day Three

Wonderful day trip to the walled city of Carcassone today to check out the stunning fortified castle. While we did have to brave crowds to do it, I found the endevour worth it as it was so cool to walk the battlements around and see the vast scope of what life used to be like in medieval times. This castle is well restored and while now filled with modern restaurants and shops it gives a real feeling about what it might have been like to live behind castle walls in a bustling community. Incidently, this is the castle that they did the location shooting for Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

We’ve been getting to all these great spots via our private chauffeur, Glenn. As they are in France for 7 weeks, they ended up leasing a great little car. It’s been so fun bombing around the country side in it; zipping up and down the thin lanes as we pass through the petite towns along the way. Every town is postcard-picture perfect, with alley ways, Boulangeries, squares and the ubiquitous tile roofs and stucco or stone walls. It really is amazing what passes for main roads here, both in town and highway. The difference from back in Canada of course is that these roads have been here for several hundred years (in some cases even longer), before they needed to be wider for modern travel. We had a good chat today about the fact that there are American and Japanese autos here that are both small and quite fuel efficient; something that seems to be in rather poor supply in North America. Despite the existence of these cars here, the auto makers are unable (unwilling!) to produce them for that market. At best they may be “in development”.

Returning home we stopped by the Aude River for some bread, cheese and olive tapenade. Our planned trip to Chateau Perpeteuyse will have to be done another day…we just tried to pack too much into one day!

Tomorrow looks to be a great day as we head up to Nimes for a music festival, that is headlining the Ting Tings and Franz Ferdinand in Le Arenes de Nimes, a stunning 1000 year old Roman amphitheatre (qnd perhaps the coolest venue we have seen a concert in yet…?). We might hang around that area for a day or two. Perhaps Nice..?