Day 7 - The Breadman Cometh

Today was a post-road trip day of relaxation. Now I guess as we are on holidays, pretty much every day could be considered relaxation, but what I mean is that we stuck pretty close to home.

Around noon every day a very European thing happens (at least I consider it to be very European); the tranquillity of the countryside is shattered by the bleating of a van’s horn. This happy racket indicates that the breadman has cometh. He zips down the lane to our little group of houses here at Borde-Neuve and opens up the back hatch of his van to reveal a plethura of sumptious baked treats. Everyone appears from their houses and he happily grabs what you want. It is a a wonderful part of European bread culture - something that is certainly missing back in Canada.

After kicking around the house a bit, the heat got to us a bit and thus it was time to boot on down to the nearby river oasis. We arrived to see a great little swimming hole, a few locals enjoying it already, and our new friend Alain whom Glenn and Jacqui met soon after they arrived. He and his daughters are here on holiday from Paris.

As the afternoon waned, Mich and I jumped into the car and busted into the local grocery; Shoppi in Estagel. We got some supplies and cooked up a great little Fig and Crispy Battered Goat’s Cheese Salad. It went well with some wine we had picked up earlier at a cave (see previous post for more on the caves).

Day 8 Peyrepertuse - Storming the Castle

Historical research was the task of the day. Basically we decided to reinact the process of storming a castle. The castle of Peyrepertuse, overlooking the village of Duilhac was our chosen target. Instead of parking up at the site we opted to march through the forest and up the steep slope approaching the mountain top fortress. Along the way we realized that we’d be rather tired upon arrival, not to mention that during the 30 minute hike we were in plain view of the castle several times, thus announcing our pending arrival. Of course this would give castle defenders all kinds of time to mount their defences. We could almost smell the cooking tar as they readied it to pour upon us in addition to the volleys of arrows that we were suseptable to while out in the open.

The closer we got, the higher and more daunting the castle walls began to appear. It quickly became obvious why laying siege to a castle was really the way to go in situations like this.

Turns out that to breach the walls all that was required was to cough up 7.5 Euro each. After doing so we were all welcomed in and given a pamphlet to boot!

One castle stormed.