Dordogne Days

After a big day of travel on Saturday we kept things pretty close to the campground on day 1 , with a visit to the Jardins de Marqueyssac and the local bastide town of Domme. The gardens, which are a national historical monument, are part of a private estate that dates back to the 17th century. They sit nearly 200m above The Dordogne River, providing spectacular panoramic views of the river valley (including other Chateaux). The gardens, and the Chateau they are associated with, fell into disrepair in the second half of the 20th century, and were only restored and reopened to the public in 1997. Our only disappointment is that we went to the gardens with a fully laden picnic (including obligatory baguettes hanging out of our bags) only to be told that we couldn’t eat in the gardens! After lunch (eaten in the picnic area outside the gardens) we headed to the bastide (or fortified) town of Domme. Set on a promontory high above the Dordogne it retains most of its 13th century ramparts and is certainly very pretty...as is everything around here (it seemed to be the word of the day; “pretty village”, “pretty river”, “pretty road”). It’s quite a change from the Mediterranean/Catalan (and vineyard) scenery we’ve had for the last 3 months. Much greener, more rural and, in some ways, more typically classic French.

Day 2 we got even closer to The Dordgone with a canoe trip down the river – H in one with Amy and Sarah, and me in the other with Caitlin. Not sure who got the best of that arrangement! Was a fantastic way to spend a morning, paddling down the slow moving river past high limestone cliffs, old riverside villages and under 3 stone bridges (one of which you can see in this photo).

Our first Eurocamp experience

Arrived at our first camp ground, Moulin de Paulhiac, just a few km north of the charming Dordogne village of Daglan. We’re staying with Eurocamp – which basically means the tent is all set up for us, including a couple of bedrooms with camp stretchers, and a kitchen with fridge, gas cooker, cupboards and all the pots, pans, utensils etc we could need. Back home we’d probably scoff and call it Camping for Lazy People! But given that packing our tent wasn’t an option, it’s ideal for us. Most importantly the campground has a pool – especially important today with the temperature today soaring to 36 degrees!

Magnificent Millau

We decided to take the long route to the Dordogne – via the famous Millau Viaduct. It added a couple of hours to the trip but was well worth it. Designed by Norman Foster and opened at the end of 2004, it is the world’s highest multi-stayed viaduct (whatever that means) at 343 metres. For those interested in details, it has a total length of 2.46km, has a deck area of 65,000m2 and took 3 years to build at a cost of 400m Euro’s. All I know is that it is stunning to look at from every angle (...I wonder if it will still be standing in 2000 years from now, like the Pont du Gard?).

Last Day in Villelongue

Final full day in the village. Morning spent cleaning and packing, the afternoon spent at school for their end of year festival. Each of the kids classes did a performance (dance and singing), followed by a typical school fair (stalls, chicken wheel, cake stands etc) in the courtyard. Lots of goodbyes to school friends (and promises to keep in touch).

We finally trudged back up the hill (for the final time) after 6pm - very hot (in fact it was so hot today that we could barely sit outside). Pool put to good use throughout the day!

Tomorrow we head off for the final phase of our trip - 3 weeks of camping (Dordogne, Loire, Normandy), then a week in Paris, week in London and a few days in LA on the way home. Sad to leave Villelongue, but excited about the travel ahead.

12 weeks, 32 different vineyards

All local to our village. We had a policy of only drinking locally produced AOC Cotes du Roussillon wines - 68% of which are reds and 28% rose (so whites aren't big here!). To qualify as Cotes du Roussillon the reds are required to be no more than 60% Grenache, with the remainder a mix of others, often Syrah. Of course we only just scratched the surface - there are 200 wineries in the region. In all Languedoc–Roussillon is France's largest wine producer (producing 1/3 of France's wine output).

Sunsmart

Very hot week here in Villelongue this week - nice way to finish our time here. Today we headed back to Paulliles beach and spent the day there - all of us managing to have a dip in the Med (although in H's case it was rather brief!). We realised this evening at dinner (when the kids took their tops off as it was so hot eating outside) just how brown they had become; a nice set of tog strap marks. Caitlin and Amy in particular are looking forward to showing off their tans to their friends back home. Before anyone (our Mothers in particular) starts shaking their heads, the sun here is very different to home; you don't seem to burn much at all, even with very little sun screen.

Poi-e

We started our final week here in Villelongue by doing a presentation to each of the girls school classes on New Zealand (facts and figures, differences to France, that kind of thing). Or to be more accurate, Heather did the presentation (all in perfect French - very impressive) and I held up the props. My only other contribution was to perform the Haka - which was a bit of a highlight for the French kids (and a source of embarrasment for ours...although I did at least keep my shirt on unlike when I rehearsed it!) Heather also made some poi's (a dozen in fact) which went down a treat. That same day we had a couple of Caitlin's friends round and the poi's came out again (in this photo they are twirling them to the Patea Maori Clubs Poi-e.) So hopefully we've left a little bit of kiwi here in the village.

The final week

There are moments in your life which will stay with you for ever. Tonight was such a night. We hosted Alexandra, Patrick and family (Swiss/Belgians), Albane (Paris), and our neighbours from England to a dinner of tortillas and H's famous Pear Strudel. It wasn't the best weather we've had since being here; in fact it was blowing like a Wellington Northerly. But we still ate outside and enjoyed many glasses of wine. It didn't matter who we were or what we did for a job; it didn't even matter that we conversed in a mix of pigeon English and pigeon French. It was simply a great night of bonhomie that reaffirmed why we had taken the time out to do what we were doing. When we leave Villelongue in just 5 days it will be very sad. We will all leave behind many friends and many, many great memories.

On the wine trail

Headed out for a bit of wine tasting this morning at two of the local vineyards, both of which typify many in the vicinity of Villelongue: Domaine Sanac and Mas Rous – in the neighbouring villages of St Genis-de Fontaine and Montesquieu des Alberes respectively. Both are family run vineyards with long histories. Mas Rous was started by Michel Bizern in the 19th century who, because of his blond hair, came to be known as Miquelo Ros (Michel the Blond) and the house he built was El Mas del Ros (the home of the blond one, in Catalan); hence Mas Rous (in French). The winery is now run by Michel Bizern’s great grandson. Domaine Sanac has an even longer history, the family Sanac having grown grapes in the region since the 17th century. We purchased a few bottles of Cotes de Roussillon from each – and ended up drinking one this evening as we recovered from having a couple of the kids friends over after school (plus 16 month old Yannac who Heather was looking after all afternoon for her friend Alexandra). We’ll be drinking a few bottles more this Sunday evening as we have a few friends over (adults and kids this time) for our farewell dinner.

A new beach find

Who said you can’t find a deserted beach in the South of France in the middle of June?!! On the advice of some of the locals we headed today to Paulilles (about 25mins drive from Villelongue, situated between Port Vendres and Banyuls sur Mer), where there is a lovely little beach situated (rather oddly) on the site of one of Alfred Nobel’s old Dynamite factory’s. It’s now a park and marine reserve, so the kids enjoyed checking out some of the fish who were swimming close to shore. Best thing was that there was only a handful of people there, as opposed to the main beaches closer to Argeles which are now filling up with the summer tourist deluge.

Return to Barcelona

We last visited Barcelona (sans Children) in 1997 and loved it. So with the Catalan capital only being 1 3/4 hrs drive from Villelongue we booked it in for a 3 day weekend - hoping it would be just as good the second time. And it was! We rented a little apartment smack in the middle of the gothic old town (which was great...except that it was very noisy; we had a rock band playing outside our window until after 1am. Added to that H and I were sleeping on the fold out bed in the lounge; so, in summary, not much sleep). We did all the usual Barcelona things - lots of Gaudi, lots of parks, lots of walking. We did the tourist bus on the first day to give the kids a good feel for the city (and reacquaint ourselves), and on day 2 did Gaudi's Parc Guell in the morning and met up with some old Playcentre friends (Michal, Xander and their 3 boys) for lunch in the afternoon (ie 2.30pm...Spanish lunchtime!). We then took the amazing red gondola ride across the harbour and had a late dinner (well, late for the Walker kids, 8.30pm kick off) on the famous La Rambla strip (Tapas of course). Tomorrow we will be doing a little more sightseeing before heading back to start our final two weeks in Villelongue. All in all a great weekend; wished we had more time to spend here. Lots of photo's on Flickr.

Conquering Madeloc

One of our aims before we left Villelongue was to walk to the Tower of Madeloc, a 13th century watch tower which sits 650 odd metres above Collioure and Port Vendres. We had attempted the supposed 2hr walk with the kids some weeks ago, but in the allotted time we had not even got close to the summit. We had a suspicion that we may have taken the wrong path! So, sans children, we gave it another shot on Friday. We departed from the same point...and confronted the same problem. We were doing a good job of circumnavigating the Tower, but not actually getting to it. So, with the spirit of the explorer coursing through our veins, we dispensed with the guidebook and took any trails that led up - eventually getting to the summit. From this vantage point we were able to determine our mistake; we had started from the wrong point on both occasions (something which, to be fair, H had believed was the case - but I had overruled). Still, it was good to tick this one off.

The local wildlife

Seen crossing the road outside our cottage this morning (in fact we almost ran over it in the car). We weren’t quite quick enough to get its head in the photo (it clearly had stage fright when H pulled the camera out). Suffice to say we won’t be walking around in any long grass with bare feet!

Wining and dining on the cheap

Generally speaking France is quite expensive. The guide books always say that if you’re going out for a cafe or restaurant meal the most economical option is one of the set menu’s. We can confirm this after our lunch at Al Duende, a little cafe in Ceret that we stumbled upon in the back streets of the old village. For 12.50 Euro (about $NZ 23) we signed up to the 3 course Menu du Midi – a little unsure as to what we were about to receive. It ended up being a salmon salad followed by a protein (and cholesterol) heavy main of sausage, steak and bacon (with lashings of roast potato, no doubt generously aided in their cooking with plenty of duck fat), and finishing with (what we think) was a kind of soft cheese with raspberry coulis (all washed down with a ½ litre of Rose). Bottom line is that for $23 each it was a generously portioned (even over portioned!), very tasty meal. Backing us up in our choice was the fact that everyone else in the restaurant (including the locals) ordered exactly the same thing. The only problem was that we were so stuffed that we had to discard our plan of visiting some vineyards in the afternoon.


Speaking of which, as I’ve already observed, wine is very cheap. Here’s an example of the way the locals buy it – by the litre (in the way that we might buy beer by the fill your own flagon). Cheapest we’ve seen is 1.30 Euro a litre (...I just can’t bring myself to take my empty Sprite bottle down to the local grocers to give a try). In Ceret we saw this sign at one of the local wine shops. I’m not sure that I could ever envisage buying 10litres of wine in one go (that’s about 13 bottles) – that’s assuming I had a vessel which could hold 10 litres - but at 27 Euro ($NZ50) that equates to about $NZ3.80 a bottle so is certainly worth consideration (and Mas Rous is a very nice drop from a vineyard close to our village).

Caitlin parle le Francais

School continues to go well for all the kids (school lunches aside - where we have good days and bad). They have all made friends and seem to communicate well enough (most of the time). There's still some frustration that they can't understand all that is being said - but they are doing their best. Over the next 3 weeks they have sports days to attend and a school festival (where they are dancing). Heather is also planning to go into their classes (Caitlin and Amy's at least) and do a presentation on New Zealand. And then that'll be it; the school adventure will be over.

Today, as an indication of how well Caitlin is getting on, she had to learn by heart and recite a French poem. She did very well - scoring 19.5 out of 20 (losing 1/2 a mark for forgetting to cite the author). Here's the video.

The beach is the place to be!

Three back to back VERY HOT days here in Roussillon. In fact last night it was still 30 degrees at 7pm! So today (Saturday), we headed to the beach - where it’s actually cooler thanks to the wind coming of the sea. Our beach of choice is Le Racou which is a little less touristy than the main beaches at Argeles.


It’s been a social couple of days; Thursday night we had a pre dinner drink with near neighbour Bruce (a retired policeman from England). “A 6pm aperitif” he said; we ended up leaving around 8...then had to think about dinner (by which time we weren’t much up to eating after several beers and wines). Then Friday, H and I went to her friend Alexandra’s 39th birthday. It was a dinner party – but had an 8pm kick off and we didn’t actually eat until after 10; normal practice here in France but tough on us kiwi’s. But it was a great do – we were outside until the early hours of the next morning, eating under the stars on a balmy, clear night, entertained by a duo of guitar playing Spaniards. What was most striking was the mix of nationalities present – Irish, English, Spanish, Swiss, German, Dutch (and French). And of course they all spoke multiple languages, with conversations starting in one and morphing seamlessly into another. H held her own – but it was nice to be sitting at a table with an English and Dutch couple (who spoke English well). Given we didn’t get home until 1am, and Caitlin had to be up at 6.30am to catch a bus to Toulouse for a school trip we were a little jaded today. That and probably one too many glasses of vin rouge!

The half way point

Half way through another week – and half way through our time here. Hard to believe that it’s been 2 months since we arrived. We’ve got little more than 3 weeks left here in Villelongue before we start 5 weeks of travelling that sees us finally arriving back in NZ at the end of July. The next 3 weeks are going to be pretty busy with a lot happening at school (sports days, trips and school festivals) as well as our last opportunities to trip around (including a 3 day visit to Barcelona).

With the kids off school today (Wednesday) we had a lazy morning then went to visit the Gorges of Fou near the village of Arles sur Tech. This is supposedly the narrowest gorge in the world, with the 200 metre high steep sided rock walls only a meter apart in some places (hence the attractive hard hats). Whether this is true or not, it is certainly spectacular. The gorge stretches for about 1800m, 1500m of which is walkable via a metal pathway suspended above the stream that has done all the gorging work over millions of years. Then it was back home for the mandatory swim; something which will be in high demand over the next few days with the temperatures set to remain in the high 20’s.

The other major event happening this week comes on Friday when we have been invited to Heather’s friend Alexandra’s 39th birthday – an event which will certainly put our French to the test. It’s an adults only event so the kids French will also be put to the test with the non English speaking Babysitter we’ve got coming round to look after them!