Just kidding! I can never get tired of the amazing historical sights to see in France.
As we were driving back home through a small village, I had one of those moments where I was reminded of a different small village and good times we had spent there. I just thrill to the idea that this is where I live now.
Will it grow old or be outweighed by the amount I miss my sons and parents back home? It is harder with travel limited and knowing that I can't see my family if I want to.
Today's adventure took us to a former Cathar castle down near Perpignan. You can find a link to the website in English here.
Here's the castle atop the mountain as we drove toward it.
But the first time it's mentioned in history is 1020. It was the last stronghold of the Cathars in 1255 before King Louis IX, St. Louis, took it over and made it a fortress for France along the border of Spain.
Looking for a room with a view?
Well, I can vouch that the view into Spain is fabulous. You can see the Pyrenees, down to the Mediterranean from here. But the wind climbing up to the mountain would have been enough to turn me around. Perhaps the soldiers were made of sterner stuff. (Obviously!) The views were amazing.
Selfie with the view behind us.
It's nice to be out and about, showing Grace and Jack some of the sights in our part of France.
Plenty of air inside the castle.
Goofy selfie -- just us standing out as Americans
Something divine inside the cathedral
Although Grace had visited France several times before, she hadn't been to this part of southern France. And Jack's arrival is his first time on mainland Europe.
The soaring vaulted ceiling of the chapel
People are sometimes surprised to hear us speaking our accented French. They expect to only see French people in France because of the confinement, like the woman who sold us the tickets to the chateau on Wednesday.
She asked our nationality and I told her American, but that we lived in Quillan.
Wind-blown but enjoying the sunny day
We could see for miles and miles and miles and...
We followed the chateau visit with a picnic in Cucugnan in the shadow of an old moulin, with a stop at the bakery underneath the windmill for some cookies for dessert.
More adventures to come!
Finalement!
After nine weeks of quarantine followed by a week of rain, today dawned with a fierce blue sky and balmy temperatures.
Our daughter Grace and her husband Jack arrived three days before quarantine and we were already social distancing, so they have not seen much of France.
On Saturday, I dragged Grace along with me to pick up the chairs we purchased in Carcassonne. The rain had passed and we drove up to "La cité" which is the castle that hovers above the city.
And, of course, Jack felt like he had missed out. So today, we returned to let Jack experience the castle.
Although the ramparts aren't open, the rest of the castle and the shops within are.
Very few people were wandering around the castle, so we got to enjoy feeling like we were back in Medieval times.
What's up with this sculpture? It's breasts are way off.
Grace and Jack wander ahead of us through the city gates.
We ventured inside the basilica and lit a candle for the world.
The doors to the church are giant, as you can see from a comparison of me to the door. Notice the homemade mask I'm wearing
Grace and Jack removed their masks for this picture.
We had some ice cream and sat on a concrete step to eat it, offering bites to a mottled cat who refused both bites of raspberry sorbet and hazelnut. A little sparrow, however, gratefully accepted bits of my ice cream cone.
The shops that are open are being very careful, insisting on hand sanitizer and plastic gloves for anyone entering.
We purchased an iron bell with an Occitan cross on it that Earl installed next to our front door when we got home.
And we also bought a few castle-related gifts for our nephews. We are trying to support local businesses, even if it isn't much.
Afterward we drove down to the "modern" city of Carcassonne and walked around. We got take out from a kebab restaurant and ate it in the Square Gambetta, until Grace accidentally gave food to pigeons and we had to abandon our park bench. Not really, but we did give her a hard time about the gathering, until a little boy on a scooter zoomed by, scattering the pigeons.
We have discovered that the simplest outings are exhausting these days.
I think it's going to take some time to get used to going out again.
On Sunday I posted some pictures of this castle that sits above Sax, Spain. The view at night is impressive.
View with some electric wires
As Earl and I prepared to go into town for dinner at 9 pm, we stopped to take this shot of the Moorish fortress in town. This is the view from the house where we’re staying.
It’s hard to get a good shot of lights on an iPhone at night.
A closer view
Here’s a closer look that turned out well as we were driving home from dinner at 11 pm.
See this could work as a diet plan. By 9 pm (they don’t start serving dinner until 9:30 usually) I’m tired enough that I might just curl up with a book and skip dinner.
But the castle is beautiful at night.
Last night, we just made omelettes around 7, but I taught 9 classes and was wiped out.
Still, the full moon peeked through the window at me.
How could a city that looks like this be rejected?
This is Sommières. We visited here in the evening, after checking out Uzès and the Pont du Gard, so we didn't get to see the market. The bridge in the photo was built by the Romans.
We parked near the river and didn't notice until we were returning to the car that there were signs warning of inundation when the river ran high. Luckily, that didn't happen during the few hours we explored the city.
I should have taken a picture as we drove across the bridge above which goes straight into the city gate. But, I was driving so I didn't get a picture.
Here's the gate from up close, looking back toward the bridge rather than into the town.
I know! I was excited too. I said to Earl, "It has a portcullis!" A portcullis, in case you didn't study castles with your boys like I did, is the grill that comes down to close the entrance. I'm sure the original medieval town had a drawbridge too.
As we walked toward the gate, we passed several bars where townspeople gathered. They looked a bit rough.
Once inside the gate, everything was magically transformed and Sommières' toursity side became apparent, even though not many tourists meandered around. The shops were for aromatherapy and new age items, perfumeries and luncheon restaurants that had long since closed.
We walked past the big old church and headed to the heights to see the 11th Century castle. It was closed, but the view from above was worth the hike.
Here's part of the castle tower.
Part of the castle was in ruins so we explored that section and ran into a group of young men playing boules nearby.
A man in his 20s came up the castle road alone and sat on a bench while Earl and I explored. I got a creepy vibe from him, like why was he sitting alone and not looking at his phone?
Earl said he was probably just enjoying the peace and quiet. When we started to walk down the road, the man followed. My husband has a habit of wandering off to look at things, leaving me alone, but I stuck close to him and nothing happened, so maybe I imagined the sinister vibe. It's the only time I've felt unsafe in France, other than sometimes in a big city like Paris.
After we hiked back down the road, we ordered sandwiches to go (à emporter) for our dinner once we returned to the apartment.
The gate as we left the walled city was quaint too.
I had a distinct feeling as we left the village that it wasn't the right one for us in spite of its beauty.
The wide division between the tourist areas and the local areas made me uncomfortable. The occasional flooding made me nervous; we'd probably buy a house that ended up covered in water, and it was one of the few times that I felt unsafe in a small city.
But, it's nice to sometimes know for sure that a city can be checked off the list. I'd give this one two baguettes out of five in my rating system.
Thank you for joining this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it.
We were afraid, as we visited charming city after charming city, that we were being seduced with the beautiful, sunny weather. Maybe the towns weren't as fabulous as we thought.
So on a cloudy day, we pulled into the small mountain town of Uzès.
The drive there was gorgeous and the history is amazing. Celts created a settlement there before Romans moved in and then a duchy or kingdom was created. Parts of the castle remain
Perhaps if we hadn't parked in the parking garage just a few feet from this restaurant then we wouldn't have been smitten.
The restaurant once served as the stables for the castle.
But we did park there at 2:30 and began to walk toward the village when the restaurant's proprietor stepped outside and motioned us into the restaurant assuring us that, of course, it was not too late for lunch. Many French restaurants have strict hours for eating. 12:30- 2:30 are general hours. Since the French take a couple of hours for lunch or dinner, there isn't a lot of leeway for stretching those hours.
After we were welcomed in, we sat in the restaurant with the white stone arches stretching over our heads and enjoyed our meals with a few other stragglers. Each course being served in its own time, in spite of the late hour that we began to eat.
Earl had lasagna Bolognaise and I had a cod and potato dish mixed together in a casserole called gratinè de brandade de morue, along with salad on the side.
For dessert I had goat cheese while Earl chose tiramisu. Of course, we shared both.
After a photo, the restaurant owner gave us directions for finding the tourism office.
The tourism office gave us a map and a bit of history, but we stopped at a chocolate shop and the man behind the counter gave us a route to take as we walked around the town. We wandered through the charming town, where the sun still wasn't shining, past the castle
and a Medieval Garden
We made our way to the cathedral, dominated by a high tower,
and we spent quite a bit of time lollygagging at the overlook. Somewhere in the distance was the Pont du Gard, which carried water from this village, Uzès to Nimes, about 16 miles away.
We walked back through the village, the skies still cloudy and had coffee in a charming square where the students gathered after they got out of school.
And my overwhelming feeling throughout the day as we walked the cobblestone streets was that I could live here too.
Darn it! I feel that way about so many of the towns and villages.
As we walked back to the parking garage where we had left the car, I saw a parking garage Zamboni. Just a guy on a little blue cart, making sure the parking garage is spotless.
He's under the red arrow -- not that I planned it that way.
How can you not love this country?
So there's another small town where I could happily live.
Thanks so much for playing along with Dreaming of France. Please leave your link below and visit each other's blogs to share your love for France.
Please join this weekly meme. Grab a copy of the photo above and link back to An Accidental Blog. Share with the rest of us your passion for France. Did you read a good book set in France? See a movie? Take a photo in France? Have an adventure? Eat a fabulous meal or even just a pastry? Or if you're in France now, go ahead and lord it over the rest of us. We can take it. Maybe we can all satisfy our yearnings for France, until we get there again.
Monday is a holiday in the United States, and what I would really like to do is visit a nice chateau in France. That probably seems incongruous since the holiday we celebrate is Labor Day, and a castle definitely does not celebrate the rights of labor.
Since I can't go to visit a castle anyway, here's a photo of the back side of Chateau de Chambord.
This was obviously one of those perfect days with a piercing blue sky and a straight path to assymetrical perfection.
Hope you have a lovely Monday dreaming of France, whether you have a holiday or not.
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