Return to Languedoc
Why
do you go back to the same place? people ask. Well,
here’s why …
End
of June, 2005
Our climbing roses
are in full bloom. This year’s Montreal spring has given us flowers more brilliant and plentiful than ever,
reaching across the arched gateway between our back yard and our neighbour’s,
the bright red blooms glowing in the sunlight and filling the air with their
sweet aroma.
These are like the roses we saw a mere month earlier, springing out
of the merest pieces of sandy or gravelly earth, brightening
up the simple stucco houses in the villages and towns that make up the
Languedoc …
January,
2005
… ah, le Languedoc, recollections of past
pleasures tickle our senses – soft, sweet foie gras truffé from
Les Halles in Narbonne, rugged
mountain landscapes and endless vineyards dotted by ochre villages, ruins of Cathar fortresses atop peaks as far as the eye can see, crusty
baguettes caressed by the salt breezes from the Mediterranean, and, of course, the
wines of the Pays d’Oc,
the Corbières, and the Minervois,
the intoxicating aroma of their fermentation filling every corner of the region
in the autumn. Mostly, we recall how the Languedoc, with
its historic villages and relaxed way of life, was an oasis of peace for us a
few years ago in the aftermath of some of the troublesome moments of recent
history. This motivates our winter-tired, daylight-deprived souls to plan yet
another trip in France.
Returning to the familiarity of Daniel and
Nicole’s house in Ornaisons promises a truly restful
vacation. The little comforts, the special decorations, we know we will feel
right at home. The French Scrabble board with its excess of unusable vowels – we must
not forget to bring along the tiles from our English Scrabble game. Beyond the
memories, are there new adventures in store?
May,
2005
The Air France agent tells us our e-tickets
may be invalid. The travel agent had put the wrong Visa number on the ticket –
the Visa card is used as a check against fraud. Strange -- we booked through Visa’s
travel agent. We produce ample picture ID for the Air France agent to believe
us and correct the record, so we board and are soon on our way. Then, it turns
out that our connection in Paris has just a few minutes between arrival and departure, so, of
course, we miss our flight to Toulouse. No sweat, there are flights every two hours, and even the airport
coffee is good. Soon we are in our rented car, and heading out of Toulouse
airport on familiar territory, with a brief walkabout at Le Carrefour (a superb
hypermarché)
in St Martin du Touch, a couple of kilometres away
from the airport. Le Carrefour is one of the largest supermarkets we have seen,
and offers a wide range of fresh and prepared foods, as well as clothing,
appliances, and home furnishings. They are so large, in fact, that the staff use roller blades to get around the store. We settle
for a few basics at this time – breakfast fixings, supper, some wine. The
combination of the walk and the visual array of wonderful foodstuffs energizes us for the hour and a half drive ahead.
The little house in Ornaisons
is just as we remember it from 3½ years earlier. We open the shutters to let in
the daylight and recall very quickly how bright and sunny the interior of this unpretentious
little stuccoed Languedoc village home is. To the left, we remember the comfortable living room with the odd
picture of the owners’ former Canadian home in the snow; to the right, the fully equipped kitchen and door to
the patio. It takes a moment to remember the special sequence to open the patio
door, but Barry figures it out.
The neighbours from across the street stop
by to say hello. A few years ago, we enjoyed the morning chats with Henri, a professorial
glint in his eye as he reviewed our daily itineraries and Denise, always looking
busy as she keeps things together. They are both now approaching their mid-eighties,
but it appears that they have aged more than we would have expected since the
last time we saw them. He had a mild stroke in the interim, and now has a more
vacant look in his face as he talks to us. She is clearly more tired-looking
than we recall. Familiar with the arrival of jet-lagged Canadians to this house,
they leave so we can settle in. Our terrine, salad, and anchovy pizza go down
well with the red Bourgueuil, as the sun sets on our
first day in France.
Les
vide-greniers
Literally “emptying the attic”, the vide-grenier
is a village happening. A vide-grenier is similar to
a North American garage or yard sale, except that it is held in the village centre.
They are typically held on Sunday. We see signs advertising a few to be held
the day after our arrival, and we note the village names.
On Sunday morning, we head out early, and
stumble on a vide-grenier in Cruscades,
the next town over from Ornaisons. We had passed this
town many times on our last trip; this time, the signs point us away from the
main road into a central square where a few dozen tables are set up garage-sale
style, selling just about every household item imaginable. The sellers generally
try to guess our accents. They have no problem identifying Barry as English and
think Denise must come from somewhere in Normandy. They are
always pleased to learn we are from Canada –
there seems to be a genuine fondness for Canadians in these parts. A little
drizzle begins, but this does not deter the vendors. Cell phones come out,
phoning home for beach umbrellas.
Denise picks up a few embroidered linens and then we move on to Capendu, where we negotiate a good price for a handsome
antique black and brass ember tin, only this one is for burning oil, not
embers. Women used to put these things under their dresses to keep warm. We are
thankful for central heating. Even so, the detail work in the brass decoration
belies its more mundane use, and the stories it must hold … Moving on to
Mousselens, the rain has stopped and this little town is abuzz with vendors and
buyers.
Heading back, we decide at the last minute
to turn off to Ginestas, a few kilometres from home, but nestled in the
rolling foothills of the Minervois. Denise recalls
seeing the name on a small hand-painted sign the previous day. We sense the car
is starting a climb. The road is getting narrower, and the endless vistas of
vineyards give way to hills and valleys, and somewhere in there is nestled Ginestas. We stroll the vide-grenier, covering a six-block area. Some vendors appear to
be antique dealers specializing in old French linens, stamps, or postcards.
There are also some brocanteurs
(secondhand furniture sellers) and flea marketers,
but at most tables we find locals trying to sell their unwanted things. Among other things, we pick up an old
miniature Eiffel Tower – made in Italy – this is global outsourcing at its finest. Denise’s passion for old, hand-embroidered
French linens is fulfilled many times over today. We have already purchased
enough to fill a travelling bag which we had brought along empty, in case we
bought more than could fit in the suitcase! But we will worry about that later.
Vide-greniers are
definitely a family thing – children are in large presence. We learn that vide-greniers are conducted to raise funds for local
associations, so professional flea-marketers rent tables as well. We will
recognize a few the second week.
Lunch at Anaïs is
salade de gésiers (warm
gizzard salad) – this is turning into a traditional first meal out for us in France. The
duck gizzards are cooked and then preserved in the duck fat (confit), giving
them a sweetness and tenderness not often associated with these homely offal. Served warm
on salad with a fresh baguette and glass of wine, they are delicious. (Subsequent
inquiries in Montreal for confit de gésiers
prove largely unsuccessful; one Canadian vendor tells us there is only one gésier per duck so it takes a long time to get them! We finally
do find them in the butcher shop on the south side of the Jean-Talon market and
they are as aromatic and tasty and tender as the ones in France,
especially over a bed of fresh summer oak leaf lettuce.)
Before leaving Ginestas,
we stop at a little café at the end of one of the streets closed off for the street
sale. We meet Elise and Peter, a retired
couple from the UK but living in Eastern France for 15 years. He was an engineer, and worked in the Arctic, in Florida, and in Seattle. She claims
to be a witch and tells stories of how she has helped heal people through
herbs. They lived in Brittany for a while, and were shunned by their neighbours when they built a
dining terrace. Bretons’ outdoor living has always been in the cafés; only now
are Bretons building private terraces. We chat on until the breeze makes it
uncomfortable to sit outside. We bid them farewell as they return to their van
and head off to Spain for a vacation, along with their three dogs (including a 3 legged
Lab).
A man walks by, dressed all in black, and passes
us a flier for a “Festival country” to be held in Ouveillan
in early July. There will be line dancing, a costume contest, American cars,
Harley-Davidsons, horses, and “Far-West” (whatever that is). Shades of St-Tite, Quebec …
The following week-end, we are more experienced
at this vide-grenier thing. On the Saturday, we visit
some flea markets. In Coursan, on Chemin
de Cuxac, there are about 20 vendors at a weekly
vide-grenier in a small hollow surrounded by vineyards.
It is not a very pretty setting with its tumbledown sheds and bare earth, but
we enjoy meeting again the German couple we saw last week in Cruscades. We find out that they are from Narbonne and clearing out merchandise that was left after her mother passed
away. We move on to Villeneuve les Béziers, where there is a large flea market in a charming
setting alongside the Canal du midi and, again
surrounded by vineyards. Of course there are vineyards -- we are in the Languedoc, where
grapes grow better than just about anything else. Here we find many old things
to bring home. There is also a market in Marseillan-Plage,
which we browse through quickly, as the midday sun is starting to beat
down strongly on us. We have been experiencing record temperatures since
Monday, exceeding 30o every day. We are also beginning to experience
antique overload.
This Sunday, the vide-greniers
are in St-Couat, where we meet the German couple one
more time, and in Ste-Eulalie, where hundreds of vendors have taken over the
entire town centre. It has gotten really hot, though, and this one tires us
out. We return home, stopping in St-Couat to pick up some
trench art vases (hammered artillery shells from WWI).
At home
We wonder whether the TV fare is more
advanced than we recall on the cote d’Azur (soccer and porn). First off, we see “Le maillon faible”
(a French knock-off of the Weakest Link, a British trivia show). But we did not
come to France to look at the TV. Mostly, we use the TV to get the morning news
and weather. Broadcasters do not dress up in France.
In fact, blue jeans for all and flimsy casual tops for the women seem to be a
business preference in television circles. French radio is good, with a large
variety of music, some familiar, some not.
The village of Ornaisons is unchanged from what we remember. At one point, we want to phone home, and decide to try
the public phone booth. Last time we used it, our francs ran out fairly
quickly, but now, in the world of Euros and credit cards, things have changed.
Unfortunately, it is the same old telephone and there are no more franc coins to
be had, so we do not make our call. We assume the phone has not been used in
years. We subsequently buy a prepaid phone card (carte-puce) which provides excellent value for overseas calling
where modern telephone booths are available, apparently everywhere else but in Ornaisons.
There are loudspeakers in every town. At
some point we hear “Allô Allô” coming
over the loudspeakers from outside followed by an announcement regarding registration
for the next school year. Another time, it is “Allô Allô, le marchand des fruits et légumes est arrivé”. These announcements
cover everything from the markets to municipal events.
One morning, there is a knock at the door.
A woman is standing outside with a couple of traditional French wooden chairs
with woven raffia seats. “C’est le marchand de chaises”, she says. (“the
chair merchant”). Merci,
we do not need any today.
Minervois
The Minervois
beckons, its low rolling hills appearing underfoot with little warning,
vineyards at every turn, glowing orange poppies and yellow genet (broom) blanketing the hillsides in
bright swaths of colour.
Azille, a typical
old town, is quiet on Monday morning. We had heard of this village from Daniel,
whose cousin owned a home there, and a web search promised a few interesting tourist sites;
however, most businesses will not open for a few hours yet. We wander along the
narrow streets that wind around the centre. The houses line the pavement, in
light stucco with the typical coloured shutters keeping the cool inside. We see
a patisserie, but it has a small for-sale sign posted, and we discover, peeking
into the window of the charcuterie down the block, that there is no longer a
business in there, either. The hypermarchés and the grandes surfaces
(big box stores) must be starting to impact these villages. But the main street
bakery is open and we sample succulent custard-filled cinnamon-raisin buns as
we wander the centuries old streets. We encounter what will become a familiar
sight – British visitors accompanied by a real estate agent. The Languedoc is no
longer a frontier for foreigners.
Leaving Azille,
we soon reach Aigne, an 11th century hill
town known for its Escargot, a
circular core with one entrance into a street snailing
towards the central church. The road is too narrow for automobiles, so the core
is well-preserved. Artist’s galleries abound, but being Monday morning,
everything is closed. We pause at a winery just outside the Escargot. The owner,
Yves Bru, is scrubbing his front room, trying to
eradicate the smell of moules-frites
from a reception the day before. (It rained and he had to cook them indoors.)
He engages us in long conversation. We learn how they hand-trim the vines early
in the season to allow the grapes to grow to their sweetest. We also learn of
the 
difficulties the Languedoc wine industry is facing. One of the largest producing areas, they
are being challenged by competition from Chile and Argentina, by large scale
growers starting to bring South American mass production techniques to Bordeaux
and Burgundy, and by the French government’s new-found enthusiasm against
alcohol. In spite of that, he has posters everywhere touting the benefits of
wine. Moderation wins, the Domaine Ste-Luchaise is delicious and we purchase some.
We have been there for an hour, and the
smells from the kitchen next door are irresistible. Lunch is on the terrace at Lo
Caganol (Occitaine for “l’escargot”). The salade méditerranée (shrimp, smoked fish, tapenade)
and the brochette de moules
dipped in olive oil and herbs to start, grilled lamb chop on olive mashed potatoes
and the dorade with sesame seeds and olives are all
delicious, one flavour sensation after another. The wind has picked up but we
are comfortable under the midday sun with our coffees and
nowhere to go and nothing to do. Two days into the trip, we have found repose.
We still have the afternoon to explore,
though, and we head to the higher ground where the vineyards finally disappear,
giving way to the garrigue
(scrub), treeless hills covered with windswept scrub. The eerie landscapes
unfortunately escape our camera (both lithium-ion batteries, fully charged over
a month ago, have discharged – gotta learn this new
technology). We do not realize how high
we have climbed until we cross the first ridge of mountains and begin our
descent to St Pons. The road hugs the mountainsides
and tall trees reappear. It is as precipitous a drive as in the Pyrenees, but much greener. The
small city of St Pons recalls
towns we have seen in Switzerland, with mountain vistas in every direction, except for the austere
stucco Languedoc architecture.
We begin the 25 km descent to St Chinian, and, before long, see vineyards reappear in the
distance. St Chinian is a small but bustling city. We
see people going to and fro – it is clear that this is a working city, but then
recall that commerce picks up in France on
Monday afternoon. The cathedral is open
but a funeral service is underway so we do not enter. Much of the business is
centred on the St Chinian winemaking – there are many
tasting rooms. It is starting to get late, so we decide to head back for a
light supper chez nous – cooked shrimp, salad, bread,
cheese, and a bottle of rosé.
Another day we return to Minerve, the historic capital of the Minervois,
this time in the sun (in 2001, we could barely see the village in the fog).
This has been noted as one of the prettiest villages in France,
and lives up to that reputation in person. Today, the red roofs shimmer in the
bright daylight. Perched on a rock and isolated by river gorges, the city was a
Cathar refuge until the Crusader Simon de Montfort conquered it in 1210. The medieval fortress of Sieur de Montfort is gone and the
village now caters to a thriving tourist trade with hotels, restaurants,
boutiques, and a museum. There are wine tasting rooms, as well – winemaking in
the Minervois dates back to the first century BC.
Beyond the base of the great rock upon which the village stands, we see
vineyards spreading out into the distance in every direction.
Into
the Cévennes
On our first Tuesday morning, little is
happening in our area, and it is still a bit cool to go to the beach. We put
together a picnic lunch, and throw a few changes of clothes into a bag, and head
north into the Haut Languedoc, into to the Cévennes,
the southern part of France’s Massif Central. The main North-South road between
the coast and Clermont-Ferrand is
good – it is an autoroute, and we get into the
foothills quickly. Vineyards disappear again, giving way barren hills. Except
for the red soil, it is a landscape reminiscent of California. We
visit the ancient city of Lodève
briefly before reaching the causse (plateau) at the top of the mountain range. The
walled town known as Couvertoirade (Occitaine for covered water, or cistern) is the only rest
stop in this arid and desolate area. Built in the 12th century by
the Knights of Templar, it is a thriving artist colony today. In fact, the Cévennes figures largely in the history of the Knights
Templar, whose story has become mainstream via the
popular “The Da Vinci Code”. We regularly come across
remnants of the various groups who figured in the rich religious history of
southern Europe, such as the Templars and the Huguenots.
We continue to Millau, the gateway of the Tarn Valley. We
approach from a height of 3000 feet, and see the city nestled in the river
valley. In the distance, a huge bridge spans a wide section of the river valley
– this is the newly-opened Millau bypass – at 240
metres it is the highest road bridge in the world and completes the
Paris-Barcelona expressway. The descent into Millau is
a 6 km drive; we cannot imagine bicycling up it yet people do it. Millau is a pretty French city with a pedestrian centre,
its streets too narrow for automobiles. Shops are bustling with activity; many
of them selling hand made gloves and other leather ware, traditional industries
in this area, also known for sheep farming and Roquefort cheese – all related
industries. We book a small room in a 2-star hotel in the city centre; it is spartan but cleaner than some 4-star places we have seen elsewhere.
The hotel is on the third floor of a large old building in the city centre. We
see the hotel clerk sitting behind a small opening in the wall as we pass
through the old third floor archway. We ask if there is a room available; with
a half-smile, he asks how many we want. He then takes a key out of his
pigeonhole slot and leads us down the dark hall, shuffling slowly, and opens
our room for us. The room is clean and the bed firm and even so we decide to
stay. Nevertheless, the moment reminds Barry eerily of Norman Bates, but he
says nothing to Denise until checkout the next day. She has never seen Psycho.
We dine at Le Mangeoire
(literally, the feeding trough). Denise has the museau (head cheese) and Barry
the foie gras mi-cuit, both dishes sweet and succulent. We wonder how
the restaurant can afford to serve such a large chunk of foie
gras and still sell the meal under 20€. Delicious magret de canard and cotelettes d’agneau follow, an assortment of cheeses, including, of
course, the regional Roquefort, and then flan and cinnamon ice cream reassure us
that we have we have made the appropriate choice for the evening.
We meet a family from Paris sitting at
the next table along with their friendly Siberian husky. The son has lived in Millau for a couple of years, but worked for a year in a Montmagny, Quebec restaurant (outside of Quebec City). They
are pleased to meet and chat with a Canadian couple and share their
recollections of Montreal.
The next morning, we leave Millau and enter the Gorges du
Tarn, a spectacular 50 km stretch of narrow valley carved over eons by the Tarn River eating
away at the Massif Central. At first, the Tarn valley is rather inauspicious, and little different from what we
have already seen, with vineyards everywhere disappearing into the rolling
hillsides on both sides, the river itself only a few metres wide, appearing calm
and ankle-deep. We are at river level. Looking north, we see the mountains
looming more steeply and the grapes giving way to fir trees, instantly bathing
the landscape in rich, dark green, stippled with shadows.
The mountains get higher, and outcroppings of bare rock soar above
the trees on many mountaintops. From a distance, these could be the ruins of
old chateaux; sometimes it is difficult to tell the difference between nature
and the remains of man’s interventions. The meandering road follows the river.
This road has been here for many years; the river was the main road before
that. The need to accommodate automobiles has forced engineers to cut holes and
tunnels into the rock to allow cars to negotiate the steep slopes freely. We do
not always have a clear two lane-wide roadway; we never mention it but we both
often secretly hope that no one is coming the other way. The road has
deceptively brought us fairly high up above the river. We stop as often as we
can to regale in the view. The valley gets darker as the mountains close in on
each other across the river. Occasionally, we see a stone house built at the
river’s edge; we are several hundred feet above them. We have passed many
campsites, this being a premier outdoor recreation area. We have also passed
villages. People live in the Gorges du Tarn and have
for hundreds of years.
We reach at La Malène,
a pretty village built into the mountainside where several roads into the Cévennes cross and a bridge spans the Tarn; we stop for refreshment. Outcroppings
of rock, as prominent and massive as the hulk of a cruise liner, tower over the
tile roofs of the houses below. It is not clear where the houses end and the
rock begins. Across the river, an even narrower road descends steeply from the
mountains in several reverse hairpin turns. We marvel once again at the
strength of the bicyclists who are travelling that road.
We resume our drive, to Ste Enimie, a pretty village where the river road changes
direction and begins its southeasterly descent. The
valley starts to widen up and everything suddenly seems brighter. We start at
the heights of the gorge and sense that we are continually going downward. At
every turn we see the river below us, and wonder when we will reach the bottom.
After many kilometres, the road continues to descend yet the river is still far
below us. Is this an optical illusion or a magnetic hill effect? We do not know.
We reach Florac,
the eastern anchor of the scenic drive, and stop for lunch. We chat with an
elderly couple who come from Aigues-Mortes in the Camargue. They are thrilled that we have visited their city
(on a previous trip) and that we remember it so well. They would love to visit Canada
but he is afraid to fly. We do not try to convince him otherwise; nothing will.
We have travelled the gorges from west to
east; in a future trip, it would be interesting to see the gorge from the
eastern side, to enjoy the vistas from the opposite direction, especially in
the morning light.
We want to reach the historic town of Anduze before stopping for the day. There are several routes out of the Tarn Valley. One
goes by Mont Aigoual, the highest peak in the area.
Apparently, you can see Mont Blanc, Belgium, and the Pyrenees from the top. However, our little Guide Vert
tells us that the best time to do so is in January, so we opt instead to cross
the Corniche des Cévennes,
the road that takes us across the tops of the Cévennes Mountains. At St-Laurent-de-Treves, we cross the Gardon de Tarn. (Gardons are
tributaries of the Gard River, made
famous by the Pont du Gard.)
We quickly climb again to reach the peaks of the Cévennes
mountains and begin our 50 km drive to Anduze. In all directions, the mountain vistas, with their
lush greenery, are breathtaking. At times, we seem to be perched on the edge of
a cliff, at times we seem to be in a plateau. The scenery is ever changing.
When we are on the edge, Denise remarks that it seems the drop is always on her
side.
We reach the divide and begin to descend,
once again, this time with 10 km of hairpins bringing us to the river’s edge
and into St-Jean du Gard,
finally reaching Anduze, our stop for the night. We discover
the four-star Auberge Les Trois
Barbus (the three bearded men) and settle in for the
evening. Our room has a terrace overlooking the picturesque Gardon
de St Jean valley, so we can enjoy a private glass of wine in the late
afternoon sun, and unwind from the arduous drive out of the deep mountains.
Dinner in the dining room recalls the great
pleasures of fine dining in France.
An amuse-bouche of asparagus soup, a few sips really,
tickles our taste buds for the upcoming meal. Gratin of asparagus with tapenade and salad in a rolled cucumber, pork filet mignon
in a filo crust with mushrooms, assortment of
cheeses, chestnuts in cream, sorbets, post-dessert truffles and granite d’orange. All of our food is brought out on square plates,
as has been the case in most places we have dined. This seems to be the trend
in French restaurants this year. (Auberge
les 3 Barbus, Route de Mialet, Générargues).
Thursday is market day in Anduze. Tables
are set up across a half-dozen town blocks, and vendors are selling everything
from foodstuffs (fruits and vegetables, cheese, meat, sausages, rotisserie
chicken) to housewares (provençal
linens, kitchen gadgets) to clothes. We pick up a dry saucisse de sanglier (wild boar) – the vendor
offers to double bag it – and we even wrap it again before putting it in the
car, but its rich spicy aroma still fills the car anyway.
On market day the entire town has a
carnival atmosphere. The shop owners bring their wares onto the sidewalk and
the pace is hectic as people arrive from surrounding villages to do their
weekly shopping. This is in stark contrast to the village itself, whose stone
houses on their narrow side streets have sat solid and unmoved for centuries,
since the Huguenots set up their first settlements there. There is no
bargaining in the market, but in the antique shops, the Anduze
women give us good prices; once again, it appears that being from Canada is
an asset and speaking French helps, too.
Strolling along the main street, a woman asks
“Are you American?” She is from California and must have heard us speaking English. She is married to a Frenchman
who is working in Anduze. We chat a bit – she speaks
little French. It must be very lonely for her.
It is time to return south to our temporary
home. As we approach Montpellier, we get caught up in the suburban confusion of roads. Villages are
now suburbs, and it is impossible to discern where one village ends and the
next one begins. This is the first real suburban sprawl we have seen in France.
We do manage to negotiate our way around
and back into the countryside, and find our way to Pezenas,
a charming old town with beautifully decorated houses, many of which are
hundreds of years old. We have lunch at
a café. At a neighbouring table a woman and man are talking in English. They
must hear us speaking English too; she says “hellay-ooo”
in a strong British accent. She is a real-estate agent, and her companion (we
are not sure whether brother, friend, customer) has just completed renovating
an apartment in the city. We discuss real-estate a bit and our interest in the
potential of an investment in France;
she leaves us her card. Anywhere in the world, everyone is a potential customer
to a real-estate agent.
Beaches
The temperatures are now in the range of 25o
to 30o across France.
We briefly tour the beach areas, having seem them only
in the cool fall days. Gruissan-Plage is new and modern,
with condominiums sprouting up everywhere along the beach. St-Pierre sur Mer, with its wall-to-wall
white stucco low-rise apartments lining the beach, is reminiscent of south Florida. It will
surely be overflowing with tourists with hardly a spot to park the car or beach
blanket in a few weeks.
Narbonne Plage is warm and welcoming. Forbidding in the autumn, the
sand glistens in the spring sunshine, heating up until it is far too hot to
walk barefoot. The beach stretches for a couple of kilometres alongside the
village, very much like any other Mediterranean seaside resort, with
restaurants, boutiques, hotels, and apartments. A broad avenue runs alongside
the beach, and there is ample parking, as the tourist season has not started.
There are no public changing rooms, but Europeans are not generally shocked by
a little skin, so we open the car doors and change between them, as the French
do. We enjoy a few picnic lunches on the beach – Daniel and Nicole have
conveniently provided a cooler, beach umbrella, and chairs. The beach provides
refreshing interludes to the now-constant, overbearing heat.
At home
Daniel has asked Barry to take his car out
for a spin once or twice. One morning, Barry opens the garage door to check out
the car. The key will not come out of the garage door lock. We cannot leave it
this way. With a screwdriver, Barry can remove the key barrel and lock the door
with a large iron bar. Unfortunately, we do not find any tools.
As usual, Henri ambles across the street to
see what is happening. Barry asks him if he has a screwdriver. Henri is thrilled
to help. He asks Barry to come to his garage. His garage is large enough to
hold three cars, and is jam-packed with hardware of every type. In fact, a car
is hidden under piles of stuff in one corner. He begins to look for his tools.
Wine corks fill every drawer and container, and tools and utensils and scraps
of just about everything imaginable. Barry finds a screwdriver that might fill
the bill and returns to do the job. Shortly afterward, Henri comes across the
street with an assortment of long and skinny things, tools and scraps, but not
a screwdriver in the bunch. His stroke has left him worse off than we expected.
Over the next day he continues to bring new things for Barry to try, all
vaguely screwdriver-like. Barry finally convinces him that the lock has been
removed. They share in the success of this mission.
We head out to Narbonne from time to time. It is only 15 minutes from the house and has
some fine markets and restaurants. We recall an enjoyable meal at Au plaisir de la table, and decide to return there one
evening. The menu has changed – it is printed on plastic now – but it is the
same owner. He says he had to change to suit his clientele. Ok … we have the melon
muscat, the avocado and crevette
salad, paella, and the veal chop narbonnais (olive,
potato dice, beans), all delicious and good value for
the Euro. (Au plaisir de la table, 50 Passe Ancien, Narbonne)
We have plugged the ease of using bank and
credit cards in Europe for many years, now. With all of the flea markets and vide-greniers, we need a severe cash infusion, so we stop at an
ATM on the outskirts of Carcassonne.
The machine dutifully accepts our bank card and request for several hundred
Euros, and thanks us for the transaction, but does not deliver. Fortunately, we
do get back the card … it is Sunday, and banks are closed on Monday, so we will
have to wait until Tuesday to find out what happened … Denise, a banker in
Canada, knows that we will not lose, but neither of us looks forward to having
to negotiate a refund should the transaction have gone through our account, and
it could take several months to settle. Subsequent checks during the week at
our favourite cybercafé confirm that the transaction never happened, so it is a
non-issue. But, this can happen anywhere to anyone. (Cybercafé, 113 rue Droite, Narbonne – takes
a bit of getting used to – the European French keyboards are quite different
from ours.)
Real
estate
We have often spoken about owning a piece
of France. Part of the purpose of this trip is to learn what that entails. On
week two, we decide to get a sense of the real estate market for small village homes. After all, we have
floated the trial balloon and if half of those who said they would rent a house
in France did so, we could be booked for several years.
There is a lot of information available,
starting with the web. But houses advertised as fixer-uppers in France may
be a pile of stones with no roof once you see the photo. Daunting, indeed! In
the towns, the real estate agencies post their listings in the windows, as they
do in Canada. We visit a few, and realize quickly that the price of houses in
the Languedoc has tripled since 2001, in part due to the invasion of the British backed
by a strong pound sterling. It is difficult for us to compete with that.
Nevertheless, we take advantage of the opportunity to see more since we are
already there. After all, it is impractical to telephone a real estate agent
from Canada and take a next-day appointment to visit a property.
We drive through villages to get a sense of
what we like. Ventenac en Minervois,
built on the Canal du midi, appeals. So does Canet, a few kilometres from Ornaisons.
Both towns have signs of life, a restaurant, a tabac,
la Poste, and they are both visually interesting,
with their varied architecture, trees, hills.
We visit a little house in Mouthoumet, far into the Corbières
mountains. The ride takes us through precipitous
twists and turns into the mountains (didn’t we tell the real estate agent we
wanted to be close to a city and the beaches?), and rewards us with a view of
the snow-capped Pyrenees from the front doorsteps. However, we wouldn’t want guests having
to negotiate this road jet-lagged or after a wine-filled meal. Another property
closer to Narbonne (St-André de Roquelongue)
has barely a parking spot sized area for an al fresco dining terrace, and is in
front of a cooperative which will see much truck traffic in the fall.
We have an appointment with a real estate
agent in a village deep in the vineyards of the Minervois,
near Carcassonne, and just before the land begins to rise
into the Haut-Minervois. We visit the house, actually two small 19th
century houses put together, and it charms us instantly. From the outside, it
is simple enough, stucco-covered, right on the street, its windows tightly
shuttered against the southern sun. We half-expect to be greeted by a musty,
dank smell, but the first thing that we notice when we enter the darkened house
is that it is cool and pleasant. The agent goes in to open up the windows, and
light streams in. A long passage with century-old Mediterranean patterned floor
tiles welcomes us on entry. To the right is a large living room; to the left, an
equally large kitchen-eating area with a massive country-style fireplace. There
is no kitchen equipment, except for a small sink on a stand. In French villages,
kitchen cabinets and counters are considered as furniture and they move along
with their owners. The kitchen is actually the ground floor of one of the
houses and has its own staircase to the second floor. The living room and
passage belong to the other house. At the rear, there is a small patio with a
cement block shed. Removing the shed would free up enough space to have a
sizeable walled dining terrace out back. There are three rooms upstairs, a
full, modern bathroom, and a small washroom as well. The rooms are linked in an
odd arrangement of levels linked by two steps up here, three steps down there.
The large attic is dry and clean. Much of the interior is covered half way with
wood panelling. This is very un-French; the wood will make great shelving
material, though.
The real estate agent asks us what we think of the house. We are
abuzz with ideas– two staircases, three potential bedrooms, a terrace,
vineyards. For lack of a better word in French, we tell him we find it “funky”.
He looks at us quizzically – funky? c’est de la musique,
n’est-ce pas? Yes, but funky could also be things
that tickle your fancy, perhaps a play on the word “funny”. We do not want to
drown in the metaphors, though. We
explain that the house has many interesting little features and that it is full
of possibilities. Adjacent to a 12th century fortification, the
charm of the location and its interesting spaces overshadow the need for cleaning
and painting, kitchen fittings, and a lot of furniture. Voila, funky!
We shake hands, and vow to let the agent know
our thought in the next couple of days after our return to Canada. E-mail,
en bon français
les “mails” (pronounced “mail”, as in English), removes distance and time
zones from that part of the business.
Full of ideas, we return to Narbonne for supper at Les Barques, beside the canal. We start with a salade des écrivisses (its sauce
good enough to mop up), a filet de dorade in garlic
sauce (more mopping up), a tender grilled entrecote in a delicious pepper sauce,
and a crème brulé and chocolate cake in crème fraiche. We enjoy coffee on the warm terrasse,
caressed by a light breeze. The temperature is pleasant for sitting outdoors
and this is one of the simplest but finest meals we have had on this trip. The Restaurant Les Barques delivers its promise. (Restaurant
Les Barques, facing the Canal de la robine, Cours de
la Republique).
Houses have to be furnished -- we need to
know what that costs. We spend a day or so window shopping -- Le Carrefour for
fridges, TV, and housewares; TriDome
(a French version of Home Depot) sells paints at a reasonable price and all
sorts of interesting decoration treatments for cement walls; Darty, a big box appliance store offering free delivery and
installation within 48 hours (their little trucks are everywhere in France);
But – a more formal furniture store featuring nice beds; Fly, similar to IKEA
but more expensive, good for upholstered things. For wooden furniture, our choice
is the brocantes -- Broc de
l’Isle and Broc-Troc are treasure
troves of antique and other used furniture at prices highly competitive with
new furniture. And we haven’t looked at kitchens yet.
We visit a notary and discover that French
real estate transactions are handled exactly as in Quebec. He opens a
file for us, gives us his e-mail address, and assures us that virtually everything
can be done at a distance from Canada.
On our last evening, we dine in on foie gras truffé and museau from our favourite vendor in Les Halles.
Silky smooth in texture, with a hint of salt, a hint of sweet, a hint of fowl,
each on their own subtle and understated, but together, an explosion of savoury
extravagance, the foie gras we so
eagerly anticipated has set the gold standard for our taste buds. A bottle of
wine, a baguette, and some salad completes this meal that was the first thing
that came to mind when we thought of the Languedoc. We have other things in our minds now and are
ready to return home.
Returning
We do not think twice about going back to
the Languedoc. The peace we experienced there on our previous trip had little to
do with world events and everything to do with the place, its people, its way
of life. Our artillery shells set off the airport metal detectors, but the security
agent sees them and sends us off on our way with a smile.
As we see the red-roofed houses receding in
the distance and Toulouse airport becomes a memory, we are relaxed. We have much to think
about, but there will be time for that later.