For Sale

Well, with a few properties now on the market, I thought I'd share them.

This property has been on the market for over 6 months now, and the price of 150,000 Euros has been reduced. The house has a traditional layout with 2 rooms and a kitchen on the ground floor, and the 3 bedrooms. Up in the attic is a room, big enough for a bean bag.
This house has a good size garage with a large room above (yet open to the elements) and a courtyard. Both are separate from the house, but every close, being just the other side of the neighbouring property.

http://www.seloger.com/292167/29982951/detail.htm

We saw the following property when we were house hunting and the current owners have done wonders with the house. It is a large property on the main road out of Cruzy our route to Beziers. They have created a very contempary living space, creating a large open plan kitchen / living space by removing 2 of the former bedrooms, refurb the remaining 2 rooms to a high standard. The courtyard is a great space to host lunches and the views have to be the best in the village, with clear views of the mountains, and with vine-yards in every direction beginning at the boundary walls.

http://www.seloger.com/detail.htm?ci=340092&euro=1&idtt=2&referid=1&IMMOBW_ANN_QRYpg=20

Aigues-Mortes

We decided that we should discover a little more of France, so we jumped into the car and headed east… for 2 hours. There we found Aigues-Mortes. This is a place we have heard a great deal about set along side the salt flats and a short drive from the Mediterranean Sea. We had heard it was a pretty version of Carcassonne. We arrived in time for lunch, so enjoyed a meal of home-made fish soup (is it supposed to taste of sea water?) and a plate of beef, cooked until it turned to leather… okay, you see where I am going with this…

The city is walled by large turrets and ramparts. Once we paid to enter the ramparts (6 Euros each) we began our walk along the tops of the city. We could look down on buildings of the inner-city or look over the car-parks outside the city. It was amazing to be able to look into peoples homes, over high walls into courtyards and even, into the private terraces created by destroying the 300 year old buildings. Oh, and once we began out walk, the loo was 1 hour away.

Carcassonne forever!

Winter Flowers

The Mimosa festival is the first activity in which thousands of people descend upon the small hillside village of Rqueburn. We missed it last year, so followed instructions from a seasoned visitor to the festival and left bright and early to ensure a parking space. We left later than instructed, but parking was fine not difficult. After the event, there was not a space on the verges, left or right which did not host a car, motorbike or mini-van. Even the surrounding vine-yards had become unofficial car-parks.

The day began like may of the festivals we have come to know and love, but unlike those other festivals, every stall had mimosa cuttings in among the products, most of the crowd had mimosa peeking out of pockets, under or though hats, and even attached to their little dogs, of which there were hundreds.

The mimosa was on sale for only 3 Euros a bunch, but most people seem to think it okay to walk around the village, ripping great bunches off trees from private gardens, parks and event the Mediterranean Garden exhibition.

It was a long day, cumulating with a precession of floats decked in mimosa, which was unhooked when passing by those unwilling to pay for or steal from gardens.


As the precession passed, those who had already had the benefit of the floats, preceded to walk along side the floats, stopping to unhook more mimosa, stand in the way of cameras, and basically block the view for those not privilad to have been at the start of the precession. Upon the floats were young children distributing confetti to the waiting crowd, pulled along by tractors, driven by men who were smoking, drinking and at times spending more time looking at the exotic Brazilian dancers (who were the main draw of the entire festival) than the road.