Day 10
We were off and headed towards Caracassone for a night. Having read that Caracassone can be overrun by tourists during the day, we seized the opportunity to take as much time as possible getting there.
Desperate for some beach time, we first set our sights on Narbonne Plage.
When we arrived at Narbonne Plage, the tramontane was still kicking up it's chilly heels, so we decided to venture to Gruissan. Gruissan was part of the setting for the 80's art house french film Betty Blue. Both my husband and I remembered the film from our college days, and thought it might be fun to visit and find the stilt house(s) featured in the film. We explored the old part of town on foot, and found many stilt houses, but none resembled what my husband remembered from the film. To be honest, I didn't remember that particular detail- my memories were of the dark and depressing tone of the film. We later found out that a hurricane had devastated many of the homes near the beach some years ago and decided that was why we couldn't find our pop culture icon.
We continued a little further to St Pierre sur Mer. Yet another market enticed us from our trusty rental car. My score of the day was a Laguiole cork pull. I had been eyeing them throughout our trip, and decided to plunk down the 25 euros one vendor was asking. Ignoring the dollar to euro conversion rate, I convinced myself it was still a good deal -even if it might be a fake.
Remember how I said we were desperate for a little beach action? We may have been in France, the love of our lives and filled with wonderful culture to see, but we were on vacation and we both needed some time to just chill. We plunked ourselves down on the beach and spread out our blanket. The old adage "only mad dogs and English men" came to mind, as we weathered the constant onslaught of sand kicked up in our face by the wind. The wind was both a blessing and a curse. It kept the air temperature pleasant enough for my husband, but the chill temps made me timid about fully immersing myself in the ocean. At least my feet got a little taste of the beautiful Mediterranean water.
We endured about two hours of the sand pelting across us,before my husband declared 'enough' and demanded that we get back in the car and forge on.
Next stop- the Abbaye du Fontfroide. The grounds of the Abbaye were beautiful- cypress trees and multitudes of oleander in bloom. The smell of the oleander was intoxicating. We attempted a hike up the mountain to the cross on the peak. OK, big mistake on my part. Not the hike, but what I was wearing. Not intending to make a hike up a rocky hillside, I was wearing 3 inch high wedge sandals. As we made our slow ascent, I cursed myself but tried not to make a big deal out of my self-inflicted handicap. About 3/4 of the way up, a loud grunting sound caused my husband to nearly knock me over as he did a quick backtrack. Two wild boar had just attempted to run across the path, one made it and one was on the other side. They continued to grunt and threaten from opposite sides of the pathway. Having no idea how to deal with wild boar, but knowing that they can be pretty nasty, we bid a hasty retreat back down the hillside. I quickly took my shoes off and opted to walk barefoot on the rocky path, rather than risk breaking an ankle if we had to make a quick run or climb a tree to avoid some sharp and painful tusks up our 'arses'.
Our legs were still at about the consistency of jello when we finally made it back to the cloisters. We're not complete idiot city folk- I was first warned about wild boar while trekking through the jungles of Indonesia and have fought off dominant male monkeys in same said jungles and DH (dear husband) has dealt with bears stealing his food supplies in Yosemite. But we still needed a little calming down, so decided that a wine tasting before leaving the Abbaye grounds would be our best option. During our tasting, we learned that the wild boar were a big problem at the Abbaye, destroying many vines, but still never learned how to fend them off should we ever encounter the same situation again. The wines were delightful, and we bought two white and one red.
We were off and headed towards Caracassone for a night. Having read that Caracassone can be overrun by tourists during the day, we seized the opportunity to take as much time as possible getting there.
Desperate for some beach time, we first set our sights on Narbonne Plage.
When we arrived at Narbonne Plage, the tramontane was still kicking up it's chilly heels, so we decided to venture to Gruissan. Gruissan was part of the setting for the 80's art house french film Betty Blue. Both my husband and I remembered the film from our college days, and thought it might be fun to visit and find the stilt house(s) featured in the film. We explored the old part of town on foot, and found many stilt houses, but none resembled what my husband remembered from the film. To be honest, I didn't remember that particular detail- my memories were of the dark and depressing tone of the film. We later found out that a hurricane had devastated many of the homes near the beach some years ago and decided that was why we couldn't find our pop culture icon.
We continued a little further to St Pierre sur Mer. Yet another market enticed us from our trusty rental car. My score of the day was a Laguiole cork pull. I had been eyeing them throughout our trip, and decided to plunk down the 25 euros one vendor was asking. Ignoring the dollar to euro conversion rate, I convinced myself it was still a good deal -even if it might be a fake.
Remember how I said we were desperate for a little beach action? We may have been in France, the love of our lives and filled with wonderful culture to see, but we were on vacation and we both needed some time to just chill. We plunked ourselves down on the beach and spread out our blanket. The old adage "only mad dogs and English men" came to mind, as we weathered the constant onslaught of sand kicked up in our face by the wind. The wind was both a blessing and a curse. It kept the air temperature pleasant enough for my husband, but the chill temps made me timid about fully immersing myself in the ocean. At least my feet got a little taste of the beautiful Mediterranean water.
We endured about two hours of the sand pelting across us,before my husband declared 'enough' and demanded that we get back in the car and forge on.
Next stop- the Abbaye du Fontfroide. The grounds of the Abbaye were beautiful- cypress trees and multitudes of oleander in bloom. The smell of the oleander was intoxicating. We attempted a hike up the mountain to the cross on the peak. OK, big mistake on my part. Not the hike, but what I was wearing. Not intending to make a hike up a rocky hillside, I was wearing 3 inch high wedge sandals. As we made our slow ascent, I cursed myself but tried not to make a big deal out of my self-inflicted handicap. About 3/4 of the way up, a loud grunting sound caused my husband to nearly knock me over as he did a quick backtrack. Two wild boar had just attempted to run across the path, one made it and one was on the other side. They continued to grunt and threaten from opposite sides of the pathway. Having no idea how to deal with wild boar, but knowing that they can be pretty nasty, we bid a hasty retreat back down the hillside. I quickly took my shoes off and opted to walk barefoot on the rocky path, rather than risk breaking an ankle if we had to make a quick run or climb a tree to avoid some sharp and painful tusks up our 'arses'.
Our legs were still at about the consistency of jello when we finally made it back to the cloisters. We're not complete idiot city folk- I was first warned about wild boar while trekking through the jungles of Indonesia and have fought off dominant male monkeys in same said jungles and DH (dear husband) has dealt with bears stealing his food supplies in Yosemite. But we still needed a little calming down, so decided that a wine tasting before leaving the Abbaye grounds would be our best option. During our tasting, we learned that the wild boar were a big problem at the Abbaye, destroying many vines, but still never learned how to fend them off should we ever encounter the same situation again. The wines were delightful, and we bought two white and one red.
Finally, we arrived at Caracassone. Since we had reserved a room for the night in the old walled city, we were able to park in the 'special' lot. From the parking lot, it was an easy five minute walk to our B&B,
L'Echappee Belle. The B&B was very pleasant, our room bright and airy and bonus for my husband, an Irish host. We deposited our bags in our room and set off to explore Carcassone without the throngs of crowds.
Carcassone in the evening was a lovely experience. We noticed the evidence of the multitude of shitty souvenir shops, but it had little effect on our impressions. At night, the streets were calm. You could savor the architecture and the slower paced european lifestyle. No one was in a rush, this is how life should be. The most interesting part of Caracassone is supposedly the old ramparts, only accessible by tour, but we missed out on that. Still, we thouroughly enjoyed our time. Before dinner, we explored the town and the public part of the ramparts, it was everything you might have expected from your preconceived notions of a fortified city.
For dinner, we settled upon a restaurant in one of the town squares. There were several restos, full of people, but none stood out. I don't remember how we chose our the resto for our dinner, but it was fine. I ordered duck and my husband ordered Cassoulet. DH faired much better than I, since he didn't have to declare his preference for the pink in his meat. I, stupidly being used to the American idea of overcooked meat, told the waiter I wanted my meat pink, i.e. medium rare. When my duck arrived, it was barely cooked..having forgotten the french word for medium rare "cuit" and barely edible. I was too embarrassed to send it back to be cooked a few more minutes. Must study more french before next trip!After dinner, we grabbed one of the many bottles of wine we were now transporting across southern France and headed back to the ramparts. There, we enjoyed a wonderful evening, observing (and obsessively photographing) the ever changing mood of the beautifully lit ramparts as the sky deepened.
And eventually, the rain began again and we took our cue to go to bed.
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