What a difference an F makes…

Today in summary: Croissants:0; Cheeses: 1 (chevre); Chocolates: 2; Castles:2; Churches: 0; Rain:0; Patchwork Stores: 0; Kilometres walked:5+ (but mostly uphill – why didn’t they build castles on the flat?); Translation Faux Pas: 0 (but still recovering from yesterday)

When we visited la boucherie yesterday, I thought we were buying goose sausages (‘oie’ in French) but alas they were ‘foie’ (liver). What a difference an ‘f’ makes! We cooked them on the BBQ and smothered them in Dijon mustard. They could have been worse but we won’t make that mistake again…

Our primary destinations today were Chateau Queribus:

and the expansive Chateau Peyrepertuse :

Both one-time Cathar strongholds and both a very long way UP from the carparks. Neither castle had many visitors so we were free to poke around at our leisure in the glorious sunshine. We weren’t the only ones enjoying the sun. Look at what we saw basking on the castle path:

We returned home via Gorge Calamus – a rugged, narrow 3 kilometre stretch of road. A hair raising experience not to be repeated.

Here I am at Queribus. In a fine family tradition, I have not 1, not 2 but THREE cameras:

My Grand Faux Pas

Today in summary: Croissants:1; Cheeses: 2 (chevre & vache), Castles:1; Churches: 0; Rain:0; Patchwork Stores: 0 (must be losing my touch); Kilometres walked:15+; Translation Faux Pas: 1 (but a big one)

Well, I have officially failed translation duty. One trip to la boucherie this morning to buy some cold cuts for our pique-nique and we managed to come home with liver sausages. What was I thinking?! And this is after all of David’s admonitions to brush up on my French so that we could avoid eating offal and they were even clearly labelled “foie”. But they looked so good! Who knows, they might even taste OK yet – I’ll let you know. More successfully, we picked up some luscious strawberries from the general store and the fragrance has permeated the house. Yummy!

Today our excursion was to Chateau Puilaurens which is perched on top of peak only a few kilometres away. Our Copacabana training on the stair master proved useful as we zig zagged our way up to the gate. I am discovering a whole new vocabulary associated with castles: parapets, ramparts, barbican, corbels, machilocation (latrines), crenels, merlons and so on. Inside Dame Blanche’s tower, there was even a medieval “conduit voix” – a groove in the brick work that apparently worked as a speaking duct to allow communication between various floors in the tower.

After our self-guided castle tour, we took a circuit hike through some adjoining forest trails where I was able to take this photo from an elevated viewpoint;

A castle (or two?) a day…

Our excursion yesterday to the Quillan market was a little disappointing although we did locate a laundromat (there’s no dryer at the house and David, the laundry king, is not partial to clotheslines) and I stumbled across my second patchwork store in as many days.

Since we were already on the northern side of the gorge (a very narrow road) we decided to check out Chateau d’Arques - a small but perfectly formed castle:

In the afternoon, we hiked a 7 km circuit track through the forest on the slopes above Axat. Hiking with David, a veritable Eagle Scout, is always exhausting - there are only so many rest stops you can take under the pretext of taking photos - but, unlike our last hike, there were NO mosquitoes.

Bonjour!

We arrived in France on May Day and, within 24 hours, I had already found my first patchwork store. I wasn’t even looking for it - honestly! After dropping our house exchange hosts off at the train station in Carcassonne, David and I made an expedition to to a large supermarket in a quest for David’s breakfast staple - bananas & Pepsi (the secret apparently to his youthful complexion). And there, immediately opposite the checkout counters was a small craft and needlework store. I didn’t venture inside but I know where to find it for next time!

While in Carcassonne, we took the opportunity to explore La Cite - an imposing, slightly Disneyfied, fortification punctuated by 52 stone towers:

Within the ramparts, there is a 12th century castle that we bypassed for the Basilique St-Nazaire which featured these wonderful Munchenesque (the Scream) gargoyles:

Back “home” (the yellow house next to the Aude River below) in the village of Axat, and we have already made two visits to the boulangerie/patisserie and are looking forward to our first market day in a nearby village tomorrow.

For our pre-dinner stroll, we went and inspected this railway bridge:

and enjoyed a little spring colour (and perfume!) of lilacs in bloom:

We have access to a computer and broadband here so I should be able to make more blog posts of our sojourn in the Pyrenees.