We’re happy to report that the internet service is working again at our home in Giroussens. Its been quite a frustration to have to find alternate places to work from.
I’ve just added a post below of our visit to a few towns in the Pyranees mountain on May 22nd so please have a look.
Hi all! sorry for the lack of posts but our home in Giroussens has a broken phone line and thus no Internet for us – Yikes! We have been going to the airport and some hotel lounges so we can use WIFI.
We’ll try and keep you updated as we do have some photos to share!
Until later.
We took a drive into the Pyranees mountains today. Our first stop was Prades, a small town of around 6000 inhabitants. We arrived during the weekly tuesday-market and after parking we enjoyed a walk through and purchased a freshly roasted chicken, some rice and some baklava for a picnic lunch. It can very expensive to eat out at restaurants in France so the picnic approach has become our preferred method of sustenance when we are away from our home-base in Giroussens. We have found that our family can eat like kings for about 20 euros per day by buying pre-made food from markets and grocery stores, compared with 50-100 euros per day using the restaurant approach.
Our next stop was the town of Eus which is purported to be one of the most beautiful villages in France. Eus is built on the sunny side of a relatively steep rocky cliff and sports impressive views of the surrounding mountains and valleys. The top of the town is crowned by a church whose single front tower appears as if it belonged to a fortified castle. Here’s a short video on Youtube which shows Eus.
We concluded our Pyranees visit by stopping briefly for ice-cream in lovely Marquixane before returning to Argeles-sur-mer to give the kids more beach time–which the really enjoyed as you can see from the photos.
The day started off less than ideally when we awoke and discovered that the high speed internet access in our room no longer worked. The staff at the hotel were puzzled by this and were unable to resolve it. Marissa had some work that she needed to get done so we were in need of a solution. We checked out of our hotel and went to two other nearby hotels but we unfortunately discovered that neither actually has internet access despite the fact that the booklet we picked up from the local tourism office claims that they do. At this point we decided to abandon our search for another hotel in Argelès-sur-Mer because the only other hotels that “might” have internet access were priced well out of our price range.
So we drove to Perpignan and checked into an Etap hotel and at 45 euros per night the price is just right. We’re within 30 minutes drive to many beaches from here so its not so bad.
I forgot to mention that the weather wasn’t cooperating this morning; in fact it was raining. While Marissa did a couple hours of work in the hotel I took the kids to a playground at a local fast-food place called ‘Quick’. It was still raining by the time we picked Marissa up so we decided to explore Perpignan instead of going to the beach. We parked in the downtown core and walked around for a couple of hours, the highlight of which was a visit to the Palace of the kings of Majorca.
By the time we finished visiting the palace, the sun had begun to shine and so we headed over to the beach at Canet and the kids played in the sand while Marissa and I relaxed. So the day turned out to be very enjoyable despite a bit of a rough start.
We’re not sure what we’re going to do tomorrow. We might take a drive into Spain or we might head up into the Pyrenees or we might even do both.
Bonne nuit.
We left the clouded skies of Giroussens today in search of sun and beach. As we travelled south towards the Mediterranean sea the clouds seemed inescapable. But as we neared Perpignan the clouds vanished and we felt the wonderfully hot Mediterranean sun upon us.
Our initial intentions were to base ourselves in Perpignan but in the end we decided to stay closer to the beach in Argelès-sur-Mer. After a brief search we located a suitable hotel within walking distance to the beach and with high speed internet access.
The kids played on the beach for a while but the very strong winds eventually encouraged us onto other activities. We jumped back in the car and drove along the coast to the town of Port-Vendres and then returned by way of Collioure where we stopped for an hour-long hike along the rocky coastal cliffs. I’m hoping that today’s photos will reveal some of the stunning scenery that we enjoyed today.
Good night to all.
It was on and off rain today as we took a drive over to the open market in Lavaur to pick up our roast chicken and fries for lunch. I think I’ll miss this when I go home to Canada. Superstore chicken just isn’t the same.
After a filling lunch, Diane and I drove over to the downtown of Giroussens to take a look at the Maison de la Ceramique here. Very cool stuff on exhibit, I may have to go back for another look one day.
Once we got home, Francois was itching to go exploring again. So the kids, Francois and I went for a drive to the nearby town of Lisle sur Tarn. Charming old town with a nice plaza in the centre of it. It is the only fortified town on the Tarn River’s plain to possess a port.
We stopped and walked around with the kids and stumbled across a chocolate gallery/museum. Since the kids were really gung-ho to go in–and me too–we decided to check it out. It was smaller than the Cluizel museum in Damville but had some great works of chocolate art. It had one other work of art that I had not yet encountered here in France – a very snooty French person. The lady/wife of the chocolatier ran the museum and boutique and was obviously not very fond of children….hello!! Chocolate and kids go together like white on rice! Long story short, we went through the tour and the boutique while she kept a stern eye on Emma and Liam and pursing her lips everytime they got excited. She kept telling them not to touch the items for sale in the boutique. Isn’t that the point of a boutique? She even told Emma not to put her fingers on the display glass of her bonbons.
Ah well, I had a good chuckle over that madame, especially since she glanced over my attire with a clear look of repugnance. I guess I was not haute couture enough for her. We didn’t let her spoil our day though as we bought just a few items to share on the way home – see ya later choco lady!
Tomorrow we head out for Perpignan for some sun and beach time and Diane goes to Paris on Monday.
Blog you later.
Today we went off to Toulouse to our favourite little mall to get some haircuts for Liam and Francois, have some ice cream and then do some grocery shopping. The weather was changing for the better today. The sun managed to come out in the afternoon although it was a little muggy from all the past rain we’ve had here.
We are planning out as many trips as we can in the next while before we have to leave. Only 41 days left to go and lots to see. I know we can’t see everything but that just means we’ll have to come back.
Sorry no pictures of the haircuts but I’m sure I’ll snap some soon.
We took the train from Bordeaux back to Toulouse today and I’m now completely sold on the concept of rail travel. I love the fact that there are no security checks to go through and that there is no luggage check-in. You simply show up and board 5 minutes before your train. And trains here are almost always exactly on schedule. The seating is comfortable – we had two pairs of seats facing each other with a pull out table top between us which the kids used for drawing and colouring. And best of all, the train stations are right in town so when you arrive by train you are usually right where you need to be, not 30-60 minutes away like most airports.
Prior to boarding today’s train we did manage to do a bit more touring of Bordeaux. Bordeaux has a great tram system in place and we used it to get from our hotel over to the 230-year-old opera house known as the Grand Théâtre. The Grand Théâtre is quite a lovely building, and as is often the case, photos do it no justice.
Sadly, we didn’t actually drink any Bordeaux wine while in Bordeaux. But Bordeaux is now officially on my list of places to return to, so this oversight will eventually be corrected.
Today we decided to take the TGV train from Toulouse over to Bordeaux, the land of great wine. The two hour train ride was really great and quite affordable too (61 euros for all 5 of us). We might decide to do another train trip in the near future….perhaps Paris again? We’ll see.
Once we arrived in Bordeaux we checked into our Etap hotel, located conveniently across the street from the train station, and then we started to walk around the city. Tonnes of construction and rennovation going on here everywhere you look and tonnes of dog doo doo too. I’m sure the city will be quite stunning when all the construction is finished.
Hopefully we’ll see a little more tomorrow before our two hour train trip back to Toulouse.
More blogging tomorrow!
We spent the day with my aunt Carole and her family at a very interesting place called Cap’Découverte. Cap’Découverte is basically a massive gravel pit thats been turned into an adventure park complete with a Summer ski hill, wake boarding, a crazy zip line and much more. The interesting thing is that the public doesn’t really know about this place yet so its almost empty and the price for unlimited use was only 10 euros. The kids had an absolute blast at this place and so did we. They even have a hotel there and I would have moved into it for a week if they had high speed internet access there.
Happy Mother’s day to those Mothers located in North America. Mother’s day here in France doesn’t occur until the last Sunday in May.
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