The South of France is Calling

If you’re American, do you remember commercials when you were a kid tempting you to travel to Florida during the cold winter up north? I do. My brother and I would sing along, “when you need it bad, we’ve got it good. When you need it bad, come to Florida...” We’d bug our parents to take us on vacation. 

I feel that way now about the south of France. Every picture I take, I think, everyone must be longing to join in. Of course, France is closed down now, slowly handing out vaccines, and people can’t travel here for vacations. 

My husband looking like the lone person along the Mediterranean at Narbonne Plage. 

I also realize that my life may always be split between wanting to be here for my French life, and wanting to be with my parents (in Florida) and my sons (in Ohio) and Grace and Jack (who are in lockdown in Dublin). 

Sunday morning was glorious as we set off to Esperaza market. The quirky market continues to offer a bit of everything. 

View from the bridge

Plenty of vendors. The gendarmes patrol and warn people to wear masks

We bought a bag from this vendor. She makes them out of saris from India.

This booth has so many musical instruments that would torture our
 nieces and nephews if we bought them for their children. 

That afternoon, we went on a 16 mile bike ride, stopping for a drink in a friend's garden at the halfway point. The sun, the sky. It feels exhilarating.

Then Monday, I had another day off. 

The temperature was predicted to be warm here 21 degree Celsius, 70 Fahrenheit. At the beach, the temperate would be cooler, but signs have indicated that France might be going into lockdown again, so I wanted to take any chance to (safely) break away from our town and explore. Our friend Jo came along, which added to the fun.

Narbonne Plage

We bought lunch to go from a restaurant across the street from the beach, offering three courses for 19 euros, but we settled for a starter and entrée for 16 euros. Salad with avocado, lardons and radishes. A main course of chicken Senegal style with rice and plantains in coconut milk sauce. 

We took the food across the street to the beach, and the restaurant owner gave us actual silverware to use after we promised to return it. 

If you have been able to eat out for the past six months, you may not understand how luxurious it feels to get food from a restaurant. We barely even complain about cooking anymore since we're so used to cooking every meal. But nearly every time we take a local trip, we make sure we can get take away food to enjoy.

After a nap in the sun and a walk on the beach, we had ice cream cones for dessert.

On the way home, we stopped at a winery for a wine tasting. Another luxury in these Covid times. We tasted four of the six wines offered and ended up buying two of them before hurrying home to beat the curfew, or as the French say, couvre feu, which literally means cover fire. 

Macron is slated to speak Wednesday morning. He may be closing down France again. Although our region is not very high for Covid, France overall has 100% of its ICUs full. Our ICUs in Occitanie are at 67%. It's time to get this virus under control, again. 

Market Morning and Bike Ride Afternoon

I’ve written a number of times about the Sunday morning market in Esperaza. The last few times we have gone the weather has been windy or cold, so when the predicted rain didn’t show up this morning m, we decided to go to the market. 

The trees are in bloom along the river

We bought some fresh eggs, the farmer picking out each egg and placing it in a carton. 

Asparagus just coming ripe cost 4 euros a bunch. Expensive but less than last weekend. Two barquettes of strawberries. 

Some Gouda cheese from René and a wheel of chèvre (goat cheese). 

When I told Earl we were having strawberries and asparagus for dinner, he suddenly had a craving for sausage so we stopped by the cheese and sausage stall for a dried sausage with cèpes, a kind of mushroom. 

We bought three violets to plant along our back wall. 

They were only 1,50 euros each. 

There are 9 holes along the wall, so we'll need to buy a few more. 

Earl planted them while I was teaching this afternoon. 

Pain aux raisins, literally bread with raisins, but this is definitely pastry with flaky swirls

When we go to Esperaza, I get a pain aux raisins, because theirs is the best. We can also get coffee à emporter (to go) from one of the cafés. We sit on a ledge in the sun and enjoy our pastries and coffee,  before masking up again to move through the market. 

We were watching HouseHunters International and we saw an episode set not far from here in Montreal, France. The show followed the American home buyer to the market in Mirepoix where I saw a vendor who comes to Quillan and Esperaza. I took this picture of him and showed him this morning. He was delighted and asked me to send it to him. 

He thinks the show was filmed perhaps two years ago.

After I finished teaching, we were out the door, driving half an hour away to Voie Verte en Pyrénées Cathares. It's a former railroad line that has been turned into a "greenway" bicycle path. We followed our friends Matthew and Jo to Chalabre, our bikes hung on the back of the car. 

The way is fairly flat, no hills to speak of, but when we turned around after 8 1/2 miles, a vicious head wind impeded our travels. Around that same time, my butt, not used to bike roads, began to complain too. We ended up riding nearly 18 miles, around 27 kilometers. 

A tunnel lit up as we traveled through it. 

At the turnaround point, we stopped for some clementines and water. Jo and Matthew had brought a thermos of green tea and real glass cups. Yeah, things are different when you travel with Brits. 

Tea time on the trail

An action-packed day with minutes to spare as we returned home before out 6 p.m. curfew. 

Sunday Morning Market

Every Sunday, our routine is to go to Esperaza market.

It closed during the lockdown, or confinement as we called it in France, but now is as crowded as it was in previous summers. 

This picture captures the bohemian spirit of Esperaza. 

Yes, that is a cornucopia hat on his head as he carries his instrument. You might assume a guitar,
but don't, because it could be a Medieval stringed instrument that you don't know. 

The first few weeks after lockdown, the town required masks for anyone attending the market. Now that we're more than a month out of confinement, maybe a quarter of the people wear masks, and the people patrolling the bridges to make sure shoppers wear masks, are gone.
Earl and I wear masks when we're walking around but not when we are sitting at a cafe. We especially wanted to wear our masks when an influx of British people began visiting this area of the country. I would feel the same way if a bunch of Americans came to visit. Coronavirus isn't under control in those two areas of the world.

This man plays the banjo while waiting to sell jams, oils and breads

You can get fresh food like fruits and vegetables, or cooked food, like paella, rotisserie chickens, potatoes, or egg rolls. Some mornings we buy egg rolls and eat them as we walk back to the car, but the French don't really eat food as they walk. It's supposed to be more of a dining experience. It's hard to get the American out of us!

Guess what he is selling? Baskets, so he might as well work on one while he's waiting for customers. 

Some of the vendors don't waste their time simply selling their products, they are busy making more, like this basketmaker. It looks more like a wagon wheel to me, but he's the expert.

The material in this booth is amazing. 

You can always find inexpensive clothes at the market, cotton dresses from "Italy" but some of the stalls in Esperaza have hand-loomed material. The colors are gorgeous.

Here you can buy handmade hats, headbands, necklaces, knickknacks.
We bought Grace some fancy gloves from here before Christmas. 

I love the variety of the Esperaza market. There are locally produced products you aren't going to find anywhere else. There's even a stall filled with musical instruments that I know the great nieces and nephews would love. But I won't do that to their parents.

We walk over a bridge going to and from the market. The town has just added flowers to the bridge.

You can tell from the sparkling river and the blue sky that it was a stellar day in the South of France on Sunday.

Here you can see the various people headed across the bridge to Esparaza

Back home in Grandview, we would have gone to mass at the Newman Center and maybe gone to brunch with friends. Or maybe we would have walked to Grandview Avenue for an expensive brunch, or just a cup of coffee at the Grind. It's a different experience, here in France, but one we're soaking in and holding onto every memory.