Thursday, April 23, 2009

Rest Day, sort of ...

After the longish drive yesterday we wanted to do as little driving as possible today; it didn't quite work out like that but almost.

I started the day trying to upload posts into my blog. It took me an hour to upload 4 posts along with their photo's. iBurst, all is forgiven! Damn but things are slow around here but I suppose I should be grateful that a campsite actually even has wifi; pronounced wee-fee where the double e is short. I think the pronunciation comes from 'wi' the french for 'yes'.
After an hour my time was up so I'll try and post the two remaining ones tomorrow morning.

Today, the weather was absolutely fantastic with blue skies and hot sun all day. We spent the morning walking into 'la cite'

where we caught mellman the Cathar heretic keeping a watchful eye for the vengeful Catholics on their (successful) crusade to exterminate them.

The centre of 'la cite' is almost completely, wall to wall, tourist shops and restaurants. This must be tourist hell during the summer, I'm very glad that we're here before the main tourist season opens. Caron needed to buy a belt since she has lost so much weight since our incident that her pants are threatening to leave her exposed so we now have a very nice leather belt bought in Carcasonne!
Caron couldn't pass up the opportunity to go inside yet another basillica and found an interesting gravestone. The basillica is from the 12th century and there are skull and crossbones insignia on the grave. I must find out what they used to indicate. Maybe he died of the plague or something.

We walked back home along the banks for the canal du midi which are shaded and it is just really peaceful here. There was a guy playing the guitar to himself on the opposite bank to add to the atmosphere.


After a lunch of leftovers from last night we headed out to the nearest wine co-op a mere 10km away but the french signage leaves a lot, and I mean a lot, to be desired and we couldn't find it. We meandered around the 'montaigne noir' which is spectactularly beautiful with rolling meadows down to the valley and the snow capped pyrenees in the distance.

This is the farm that Caron would like if anyone would be kind enough to buy it for her. She would be most grateful, as would I.

Having not found the wine co-op nor any of the other open ones that were on the map of the wine route we gave up and on the way home just happened to drive right past the one we were originally looking for so we had to stop and have a taste. The region here is Languedoc and we ended up buying a couple of bottles, one to consume soon and one to keep and share with Andre and Nicki next weekend in Venice. Something to look forward to.

Arriving back at camp we spent the remainder of the day relaxing and reading in the sun while the laundry washed and before we knew it, it was time for bed. It only really gets dark here at about 21:00 which means that the evenings are really special, especially if it isn't raining!

2 comments:

Kim said...

BIL!! So cool to get some time to read your bloog. But gotta ask..how long are you gonna hold out on the luxury accommodation?? Are you going to make my poor sister camp for 3 months?! :-)

Roland Elferink said...

Yes, is that clear enough. Actually we do a night in a hotel every 10 days or so .....