Spain and Carcassonne

We picked up a friend from Perpignan airport on Thursday. Driving out of the airport we decided to ignore Perpignan and head further south. Infact, we drove out of France and into Spain. We decided a trip to see the Dali museum was in order. The further south we drove, the hotter it got. Again, I have to say thank goodness for airconditioning. We arrived in Figeras on Market day, so it took some time to find a place to park. Once in the town, we decided to skip the museum as the queues for tickets were long, and we timed them at over an hour, all in the blistering heat. We sat down and enjoyed a light bite before wondering around the town. I managed a hair cut which was well overdue.

Our friend was easy company and not too concerned about where to visit, so we showed her brocants, vied greniers and the odd shopping centre, all dispersed with quick trips to a vineyard, Carcassonne, Minerve and Beziers. If you are planning a trip over, expect to visit the same locations. Carcassonne was impressive, Minerve was pretty and full of life and Beziers was a hive of activity.

Beziers was busy with tourists and we managed to visit a few of the toursit hot spots, before lunch and discoverd a lovely old shop in the heart of Beziers. It sold a number of items but the window displays were very old fashioned and looked great.

We walked around the walled city of Carcassonne, which is just a perfect fairytail castle. It place was very busy and all daily menues had been dispensed with and so a burger cost 7 Euros and a Coke 3 Euros. We walked around the city walls and took in some ice-cream to help keep us cool.

While in Carcassonne we were introduced to a new drink... well, it was new to us. Absinthe (for the cinema junkies, watch Moulin Rouge). What a lovely smooth drink that is also a bit of a show piece. We spent the evening following an instruction card on how to make different concoctions. First came neat. At 55% this was a no go. 2nd came Absinthe in a glass, suspending a special spoon with a cube of sugar on it and tipping cold water over the sugar. This created a sweet smooth drink. 3rd, and the most showy of all, was tipping the Absinthe over the sugar, then setting it alight. This created a sweet caramel flavour and was just lovely.

On route to Minerve we stopped for some Muscat from St Jean-de-Minervois where we purchased a good bottle of the sweet nectar.

We spent one day driving through small villages and one of the most lovely was Roquebrun. All the restaurants were full but me had a snack in the canoe centre which gave us fantastic views of the village. They say this village has a micro-climate and boy are they right. It was baking but the water helped cool us all down. We met a lovely man who said he wanted to give us a smile as we had such good smiles. This encounter could have gone any way. The man introduced himself as Jean Luc and had two little booklets on him. One with Luc on the front, the other with Jean. Alan is now the proud owner of a French language Book of Jean, bible stories.
One evening we met up with others from Cruzy, and headed over to a neighbouring village to catch Kripton, the entertainment from the first night of the Cruzy Fete. Well, they were good, but again, the villagers were not bothered and did not really participate. We all left after a few drinks. At least they sold wine at this village Fete.

We dropped our friend off again on Monday, but alas, our plans to spend the day on the beach were cancelled just 30 minutes after landing on the beach. It was far too hot and we were frying rather than bathing in the sun.

We returned to Cruzy and the shared our new discovery with a neighbour. She was taken, but not converted by the concoction.