Lost in France: Part Quatre - a castle, a bridge and a canal

We bid Megs farewell on Sunday and had a relaxing day in Mas.

On Monday, we took things fairly easy too. We started at a winery called Salitis, which is part of the Cabardes region. They had a lovely red and a great white muscat and fortified grenache. We bought some of each.

From there we drove to Chateau de Saissac, which is another of the Cathar strongholds (along with Lastours, Minerve and Carcassonne). The Cathars were basically a cult that believed that earth and men were created by the devil, because God could create no evil. Or something along those lines. Anyway, the Catholics persecuted them and hunted them into extinction. During the "inquisition" the Cathars inhabited a bunch of fortress-like castles around Carcassonne, many of which are very spectacular.

Saissac is no exception. It's built on a hillside and has been partially restored. It would be a lot more in tact if it wasn't for looting during the 18th century when the keep was dynamited to find the "saissac treasure". From what I understood of the French, they found the treasure and some of it was on display in the museum inside the castle.

From Saissac, we drove to the Limousis cave only to find that in off season it's only open for a short while in the afternoon, which wasn't for another hour. We couldn't be bothered waiting around, so we drove off to find more wine.

We ended up at Domaine Villegly, of the Minnervois region, which didn't produce much wine, but the wine they did produce was great. They do a lovely full-bodied red and a fruity rose, a couple of which found their way into our car.

On Tuesday we got up early and piled into the car for a road trip out to the Pont du Gard. This is an old Roman bridge over the Gard river for a aqueduct that was built to pipe water from the Uzes into Nimes. The bridge is amazing and holding together well considering it was built in around 19BC and still used in the 6th Century. There are about 10 official trails and a number of unnofficial ones where you can get differing views of the bridge. From these, I took a gazillion photos of the bridge, but I'll only post a couple...

For some perspective, the bridge is 50m high above the river and 275m long. They sure don't build bridges like they used to... or do they?? A question to be answered on another day.

After the bridge, we drove on to Orange (from the House of Orange, for those of you who know your European history). The town is not worth visiting, except for the exceptional Roman theatre. It's one of only three in the world with the theatre wall still standing and was built during Augustus Ceasar's rule, between 27BC and AD14.

The people probably put the theatre into perspective, but as another point of reference, the statue of Caesar is 3m high. The wall itself is 37m high and 103m wide.

It doesn't sound like we did much that day, but we didn't end up getting home until about 7:30pm. Which is well and truly late enough, so Paul doesn't have to drive the windy mountain roads in pitch black!

We had a leisurely drive along the Canal du Midi on Wednesday. This Canal was built by a crazy French guy called Pierre-Paul Riquet in the mid 17th century and links the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. He spent all of his money, including his daughter's dowries and got himself into debt to build it, but died 6 months before it opened.

There are a number of canal bridges along the length of the canal. Now, by a canal bridge, I don't mean a road going over the canal, I mean the canal going over a stream/river. This one is the Pont-canal de Repudre, which was the first canal bridge built in France in 1676 by Riquet. If you look in the bottom right corner, you can see the water of the stream going under the canal.

There are quite a few pretty little villages along the canal, such as this one, Le Somail, which we would have quite happily sat down at to enjoy a nice cool beverage alongside the canal, if the whole of France didn't close in the early afternoon!

Near the Mediterranean end of the canal, is the city of Beziers, which is as far as we got on our drive. Just outside of Beziers is a series of 9 locks that allow boats to navigate a 25m drop. Only 8 of them are in action today and the canal has been diverted from the second bottom.

We managed to see a couple of boats going through the locks. I always find it fascinating to watch.

There's also a lift system, that bypasses the locks altogether. It doesn't seem to be in use anymore, but it would appear to be pretty nifty. It looks like the boat drives onto the lift, which then moves down along the concrete slope and deposits the boat at the other side. Would have been great to see it in action.

Not too much further along the canal is another bridge, Pont-canal de l'Orb, built in 1857 after the canal was diverted. This one is quite a bit longer than the previous.

The canal is really very beautiful and peaceful. Apparently you can hire a boat and drive the length of it yourself. Paul and I have started pondering this as another holiday. Apparenlty it takes a couple of months to do it properly though, so we might have to wait a while before we can save up enough money/annual leave!!

Lost in France: Part Trois - My Birthday (aka the feast)

For my substitute birthday dinner on Saturday night we had a feast on all of the food we bought at the Carcassonne markets and some food that we'd bought at the local epicerie.

But first to the important stuff... my birthday present from Megs...

Isn't it gorgeous!? Thanks Megsie!!! xx

We started off the feast with Champagne, olives and marinated anchovies.

Course number 2 consisted of 2 types of cured sausage (duck and wild boar), chevre and a washed rind cheese.

The third course was steamed artichokes with a garlic butter sauce served with a Domaine de Gourgazaud Viogner.

For the fourth course, we had a smoked sausage, jambon and roquefort cheese served with Chateau de Gourgazaud Quintus Shiraz. The photography does start to go downhill a little from about now on due to general fatigue from the days activities. Or alcohol imbibed by the photographer. Take your pic ;)

The second part of the fourth course was a stinky, runny cheese, whose name we didn't catch.

The first dessert course was coconut roughs fromt the market. They don't look very appetising in the picture, but they were delicious.

The second dessert course (and final overall) was an apricot tart, that was also delish! This was served with a Domaine de Montahuc Muscat. Not a bad birthday cake. :)

Lost in France: Part Deux - A Visit From My Sister

After picking up the hire car in Toulouse, Paul and I faced the challenge of driving it the 1.5 hours to the small village where we were staying. I should clarify... Paul faced the challenge of driving... I faced the challenge of trying to help him get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, from the wrong side of the car, without screaming at him to get in the lane. Thanks to sat nav and some awesome driving from Paul, we made it here in one piece - no thanks to the crazy mountain roads and the even crazier French drivers!!

Here's the beast that got us home safely. He's posing with our car.

It was close to dark when we arrived at our destination, so all we wanted to do was eat, drink and get to bed. The next morning was for exploring. And what a sight greeted us... something that couldn't be further from what we left behind in Paris... serenity.

A 12th Century church, 16th century houses, narrow laneways and not a soul under the age of 60 - well not out of doors before 8am, anyway.

After getting acquainted with Mas-Cabardes, we decided to try out our French. I should clarify... we decided to try out my French... Paul has the unfortunate habit of freezing everytime a stranger talks to him in French, so his response comes out at "Je ne... Rhiannon?" and then there's a pleading look in my direction.

Those of you who know the back story, also know that our French classes were cancelled, so the sum total of my French is what I can remember from year 8 and what I've tried to learn from my French phrase book on the plane, so we're not exactly going to be holding any intellectual conversations!! I did however manage to order 2 croissants, fig jam, cured ham and a baguette... breakfast and lunch for the day.

With this achievement under our belts, we headed off to the airport at Carcassonne, to collect Megs who was flying in from London. We had our lunch together in another small village on our way back to Mas.

We then investigated the four castles situated on rocky hills above that same village. You can view them first from a look out and then climb up the hills to walk in and around them. If it was in Australia, you wouldn't be allowed that degree of freedom. There were very few hand rails, quite steep drops and barely any warning signs about the dangers of getting too close to the edges.

Here's Megs and Paul in front of the castles from the viewing deck.

Here they are at the start of the walk, oblivious to how warm it was and that no-one had remembered to pack water!

Good job the view was worth the climb!

That was it for the first full day in the south, but it certainly was a good introduction.

On day two, we had a slow start to the day and then headed off for some wine tasting. What we hadn't realised is that most of France shuts for two hours in the middle of the day. So when we were leaving the house, the wineries were closing. Plan B... how about we drive through some pretty villages to kill time until the wineries open??

Turned out to be a pretty good plan. We drove (and sometimes walked) through some lovely villages. Sometimes we even took the scenic route through the villages and drove down some of the backstreets. Now that was a little hairy... way streets that are about this wide...

...and often with blind bends. Fortunately it's not high season, so the streets are pretty deserted.

We eventually made it to a winery, Chateau de Gourgazaud. It didn't look very open, but the scenery was nice, so I took a couple of photos. As I was heading back to the car, a lady cam out of the door and started speaking to me (in French). I somehow managed to convey our desire to taste wines, and she miraculously spoke back to me in English and led us down some stairs and into the cellar that was set up for tasting. Megs and I tasted them all but Paul just had a couple. They were all pretty good - and super cheap. Most were in the 4€ region, and I would say that a similar quality wine in Australia would be at least $15-$20.

After making our purchases, we were on our way again, but not before taking a photo of the donkey for Granny.

The next village on the itinerary was Minerve. We stopped at a number of places on the way, to take photos of the beautiful scenery. It's autumn in the northern hemisphere, so the vines are starting to turn all sorts of shades of yellows and reds.

Minerve is built in the most impractical location - on the side of a cliff. I'm sure it was great for the defences, but it does look rather silly, albeit spectacular.

This is the entrance to the town. I'm not sure which OHS&W officer approved the location of the tower, but I'm sure they lost their job soon afterwards.

There was a cute doggy roaming the streets, as they do in France. It had unbelievable road sense considering the small village it calls home. A car came down the road and it sat and waited for the car to pass and then continued on its journey.

That was the last stop for the day, so we plugged our home address into the sat nav and headed for Mas. Karen, must have some weird French programming, because she took us home via neither the quickest, nor the shortest route and it was definitely not the safest! We found ourselves on ridiculously narrow (barely one car width), windy mountain roads, through forests (where there were logging trucks operating - thank god for the strikes!) with a sharp drop on at least one side and sometimes both. We were very silent in the car for quite some time. Fortunately we came out the other end, after about 30 minutes, and onto the standard narrow, mountain roads that we had grown accustomed to. Needless to say, we all needed a drink when we eventually reached home.

Day 3 saw us heading into Carcassonne markets to investigate the regional produce and think about buying something to have for my birthday dinner that night. Looking soon turned to buying and before we knew it, we'd purchased quite a large amount of cured meats, cheese, breads and sweets.

In the photo, you can see marinated anchovies, olives, smoked sausage, duck and wild boar sausages, cured ham (jambon), two smelly cheeses (whose names escape me), apricot tart, coconut roughs, artichokes and garlic. Okay, so we're a little light on the vegetable matter, but we've got our whole lives to eat vegetables, but only 2 more weeks in France.

Carcassonne is made up of the new city and the old city, which is a partially restored medieval walled city, that is still home to 120 residents.

Within it, you can walk the ramparts, explore the chateau, visit the basilique and wander the pretty streets.

It certainly is interesting trying to fit cars and tourists in some of the streets!

Entrance to the chateau

After the old city, we headed home to start in on the birthday feast, which will appear in another blog... coming soon.