At Saturday market in Pezanas. 23 October 2015.  
Two vehicles and six of us travellers in total. We found parking almost effortlessly for the busy Saturday market. By ten we were wandering the stalls looking at culture and keeping an eye out for that special something.  
Today was the last day for shopping and outings for Steve, Jim and mom. They head home tomorrow. They had fun poking around at stuff and trying on hats! So fun … Food to taste, flowers to look at, sounds of the local musicians playing some great music,mixed with voices speaking French.  
Men in berets or leather hats. Scarves keeping necks warm, men and women, or just for style. Even some very young children here have scarves around their tiny necks. In fact everyone is wearing scarves! Both men and women adorned in Slim jeans and leather shoes or boots.  
Many of the locals and usual market goers had straw baskets to carry their treasures, baguettes poking out the top, or long stem flowers or both:). No doubt beautiful fresh produce, perhaps some other food treasures to be tasted this week.
In seats around small round tables in the square there are delights being served. Coffee. Bieres. Waiters hopping. Musicians playing to enjoyment of the locals and tourists. 
The market is alive with activity, sounds, smells, textures of a small French countryside village. C’est fantastique!  
   
 

our 4th Les Plus Beaux Village: Lagrasse and a sea quick dip
We got up at a leisurely pace and with two vehicles headed off to Lagrasse. This is our fourth Les Plus Beaux Villages on this trip and one that Anne had not been to previously. We parked on the outskirts and walked in to the Mid-evil Cite.  
Small boutique shops, cobblestones, scenic and old. Old stone buildings, well kept with wooden shutters, fabulous old doors, and little flower boxes with bursts of color. The sun shone bright all day, brilliant blue sky and temperatures up around 24 degrees at least …. it was hot and really lovely. All my layers of sweaters, jackets and scarves cast aside.  
After a lovely lunch and the non drivers shared a bottle of chilled white house wine, local to the region …. served in a clear plastic square wine holder half full with ice and cold water to keep the wine at a lovely served temperature. We sat outside and I was able to keep in the sun for the leisurely lunch. Nice!
After we walked through town, to the Abbey and around the surrounding grounds, crossed a few bridges and took pics on my ipad. A few hours later we headed for the Narbonne Plage, the beach.
The beach was beautiful and huge, nice soft sand, and rolling waves of deep blue waters of the Mediterranean. Well worth the extra time to drive there, a drop of 5 degrees near the shore and in the water I went. I had my bathing suit on all day for this occasion. The water was chilly and the surf strong enough to pull me off my footing and down I went into the crystal clear water. It seemed sandy bottom all the way out – lovely for sure and I am delighted I got to do it!
Having a lovely time – my family is about to leave tomorrow and that makes me a bit sad. So I won’t think about that now – I will try to not think about it till tomorrow.  
ciao all, au revoir for now
Pamela in France
   
 

October 22 2015 was a great day.  
Five of us up in the morning and on our way to Avignon, France. I drove, as I have done every day so far on this amazing trip through.
Such a great day in the sunshine, and cool wind. We took the highway both ways, tolls a few times and 130 km an hour mostly.
We found underground parking, using gps and road signs and a few u turns … lol. When we climbed up the stairs from our 4th floor underground spot we were inside the fort walls.
Avignon was the temporary ? (for about 3 hundred years!) residence of the Pope many moons ago. So we wandered about the city, stopping so my travel companions could sample the local wares, crepes, glaces, chocolate, baguettes etc. Nothing gluten free so I had water – however it was enchanting to check out the sights, walk on the old cobblestone streets and window shop the designer outfits.  
People watching revealed local Europe travellers in high heeled boots and very trendy outfits, (camel colored wrap coats, matching scarves, sun glasses, hats and bags) perhaps from Paris? And of course “other” tourists in comfortable walking shoes and warm duffle and down coats. Fun!
After the town we walked to find the Pont d’Avignon and did a little dancing under the bridge. Reference to the song we learned as wee people in school music class! it was delightful!  
Off to Pont du Gard … a huge roman made aqueduct from around 900 AD. Lots of pictures and wondering just how they did the construction so many years ago – and it still stands today! The stones used were massive! It was a beautiful sight and awe inspiring.
Back to the car, and the villa, dinner at home and some wine consumption followed by a few hands of Euchre with the girls. Anne and Barb played partners, as did my mom and I. Fun.
Ciao for now, off to Lagrasse today and hopefully some beach time in the sun.  
On Sunday the plan is Aix en Provence and L’Isle-sur-La-Sorgue. Market Sunday and to see the spectacular sights. Then two gals arrive in Montpellier airport and are coming to stay at the villa for the remainder of the month. I will be here another 5 days and then I head to Nice to meet 3 gal friends and off on a fantastic Azamara cruise through south of France, and on to Spain for 10 glorious days in the sunshine and on this fantastic coast.
I fly home on 10 November. Wooo hooo …. what a trip!
Au revoir for now, mes amies et familles
Pamela in France

This morning I woke up watching the sun rise. Right outside my room, is a large palm tree, and the leaves and branches are silhouetted against the most spectacular sunrise.
All colours of the vibrant rainbow are against the black background. Purples, reds, oranges, pinky peach, yellow gold, added to the dark blue and the range is complete. Wow, fantastic sight.
The plan tomorrow is Saturday morning Pezanas market and maybe out for dinner. We will have an early evening as mom, Jim and Steve all leave the next morning very early from Montpellier to fly home. Their vacation is finished and the trek home begins for them. I will be returning the rental car. It has been an awesome vehicle, automatic and roomy for all of us to tour around in.  
Today we plan to check out another Les Plus Beaux Villages, in this area, Legrasse. Perhaps we will also check out some beach close by. The temperature looks like 21 degrees today so that will be awesome. Still windy this morning but hopefully that will calm down as the day goes on.
Anne and Barb are up and reviewing some internet sites that celebrate the Back to the Future movie famed day 21 October 2015! It is not what the movie predicted …. interesting concepts and entertaining to consider what we thought life might be like and how it actually looks. A virtual selfie of progress in entertainment time travel through the eyes of Doc Emmett Brown and Marty McFly! lol. Fun….
Have a wonderful day wherever you are in the world.
Pamela
 

Pont d’Avignon

“Sur le Pont d’Avignon” is a French song about the Pont d’Avignon that dates back to the 15th century. The bridge is officially Pont St. Bénézet but it is better known as the Pont d’Avignon on which one dances, as the song says. The dance actually took place under the bridge and not over the bridge (“Sous le Pont d’Avignon”, not “Sur”).[1][2][3]

It starts out with everyone in pairs and they dance around each other.

When the chorus is done stop in front of your partner and traditionally the male will bow on the first part then tip their hat on the second.

When the chorus begins again repeat step one.

When this stops so does the dance and then the girl curtsies to one side then the other.

For the first part, repeat step one and then if you have an audience turn on your heel and bow to them.

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

L’on y danse, l’on y danse

Sur le Pont d’Avignon

L’on y danse tous en rond
On the bridge of Avignon

We all dance there, we all dance there

On the bridge of Avignon

We all dance there in a ring
Les beaux messieurs font comme ça

Et puis encore comme ça.
Gentlemen go like this (bow)

And then again like this
Les belles dames font comme ça

Et puis encore comme ça.
The beautiful young ladies go like this (curtsy)

And then like that
Les filles font comme ça

Et puis encore comme ça
The young girls go like this (salute)

And then like that
Les musiciens font comme ça

Et puis encore comme ça.
The musicians go like this (they all bow to women)

And then like that

Loud speakers can be heard from neighbouring villages and I just read about that activity in a book about this region. Apparently the loud speaker announcement of sales, local resident activities and even their death is sometimes announced for the area residents to hear.
Some of the greenery between the vineyards include rosemary, thyme, and lavender as well as sage and I have seen fields of old sunflowers, past their prime and ready for autumn season.
Olive and other trees (juniper, oak), grains and vines cover pretty much the countryside in every space. Fennel, broom, cactus and low flowering bushes.
Stone walls help with the erosion and trees no doubt assist with the winds that occasionally do blow. We are experiencing the winds today and sometimes you can see a row of trees all leaning in the same direction from efforts of winds past.
I have heard and seen the word “terroir” used in relation to wine and vineyards. It apparently is in reference to all the factors related to the vine in its environment. Growing conditions, I think is how it is described. A sense of place where the wines come from (reference the Wine of Languedoc- Roussillon). And then there is climate and soil as additional factors. I have seen many microclimate areas and soil varieties in my drives in the area, and many different vines turning colour, or not, along the roads and in the distant hills.  
Rainfall is low here and soil varies in colour however it seems pretty dry and the sun shines brightly almost every day, all day.  

Book: the Wines of the Languedoc-Roussillon, by Wendy Gedney
This region, Languedoc-Roussillon has every thing needed to make a great wine. They make many! Sunshine, Mediterranean climate, many different soil types and history of quality grape varietals. Great people are also important as we will also find out. People for passion for wines … For the way it is grown and then processed. People are developing new skills, some bring the history and experience of lifetimes to the bottle.  
Signs along the roadside state ” degustation”, wine tasting delights await! Many great cooperative wineries. Farmers can take grapes to the village cooperatives … Instead of having to process and make wine altogether.  
2600 years ago, Greeks and then Romans contributed to wine history. Then monks in monasteries added their influences.   
This region once named Occitania … From Roman heritage, meaning ‘yes’. 
Over 3700 winemakers in this region of France. Many are independent and small scale.  
(Taking a break from the book and going to the goat farm!). Brb.
Back from a wee drive in the surrounding countryside, including a visit to a local goat farm. My goodness. So cute. Many goats with bells around their necks coming in for dinner, I guess. Cute!
It was good to have Anne back to her villa. Barb I have not seen in a while either… Fun. We drove through Montesquieu (goat farm) and Vailhan, then Neffies. Little towns nestled in the hills in the neighbouring areas around Roujan … the nearest village to us.  
I love the old stone structures, churches, walls, buildings, and houses even in town. Remnants of days of old, memories locked away in stone and mortar. Shutters mostly closed indicating not a lot of people home. Perhaps closed up for the season? travelling to warmer areas for the season?
Scenic and beautiful, sun just beginning to set, sparkling off the golden leaves on the vines. Deep reds, bright greens and rust coloured leaves also flickering in the winds of today.  
I do love this area of south of France and would welcome any opportunity to come back again. Perhaps a retreat? Friends and family …. what are your thoughts?
ciao for now, 
Pamela of France.

Barb and Anne arrive. They have been cruising ten days …in Greece and now back to enjoy the last of the month in south of France. We greeted them with a chilled magnum of rose frizzante, pink bubbly wine from this region and one of our early wine tastings. It went down fast … Now we are on to the next and the next .. Lol. So many wines!
Sun shine is warm in the solarium … We had snacks of cheeses, breads, rice cakes, figues noire … Tomatoes and olive oil with feta … Lovely.  
Now heading out to a goat farm and making plans of what next to see and where over the following four days with Steve, mom and Jim … And till 30 October with me, before I head to Nice and get on my ten day cruise to Barcelona.  
Life is very good indeed! Gotta go now …. Au revoir!  
Pamela in France

Another sunny and stunningly beautiful day in south of France!
Yesterday we rose and drove on a new road toward Carcassonne. We had a plan and time commitment to meet Glenn and Maggie Wicks (who I met on Cunard cruise last year, Baltic cruise). They are vacationing a few days in this fabulous place and so we planned to have a happy reunion.
On route we drove through some new towns and started by programming the GPS through Capestang. We made a few unplanned stops just to see what was there 🙂 and stopped at a wine store, of course! Steve bought Armagnac from Toulouse region as a gift for his son back home. Lovely. Mom purchased a fantastic book of “the Wines of the Languedoc-Roussillon” by Wendy Gedney. Fantastic watercolor illustrations and written in English.
Chapter 5, eastern Languedoc is our region between Narbonne and Nimes and spots in between. I am looking forward to reading it cover to cover before my mom takes it back with her to Nova Scotia. What a find!
We managed to arrive in Carcassonne in time for our reunion with Maggie and Glenn, the sun shining and although a cool breeze, we sat outside and enjoyed people watching and catching up on our lives and remembering how we met:) I loved the chat, and warm hugs from this great couple!
A few hours enjoying their company, we also then walked around inside the walls and saw their accommodations … like a bed and breakfast / guest house. Very inexpensive, very old and the fabulous and gracious hostess even walked out to the gate to meet them and show them to their place to stay. Inside was magic! Walking up an ancient spiral turret staircase to their floor and the great view out their window. Modernized bathroom of course and very quaint! La Demeure de la Cite, Maison d’hotes is the name … if you are ever in need of a fantastic place to stay in this location 🙂
On the way back to the villa I programmed in the GPS to stop in Minerve, another Plus Beaux Villages of France. We had tried to get their previously but got waylayed by a fantastic wine tasting. This time, despite the late hour of the day I wanted to get there before the sun went down. It was lovely.  
The public parking is quite a distance from the village, so we just stopped in a handicapped parking zone, near the bus parking. No other parked cars that we could see. The town was all but deserted and most shops closed up tight, likely for the season. A few open doors beckoned visitors to stop in for wine, chocolate or ??? I think just wine and chocolate! ha ha – what else could one need here?
The views and sights were spectacular. As this area is deep in what looked to be a quarry at first, was actually carved from the stone walls by rivers from very long ago. Smooth and very unique carvings completely surrounded this village. In fact we were driving and could not see a thing coming, knowing the village was less than 600 meters away by the GPS and then it came in to view. Down down we drove and around and around as if driving down switchbacks from a mountain. Spectacular carvings cutting across layers of coloured and textured stone. Almost speechless, “look there, and there, and OMG, look over there ….” Just wow!  
Once we got out of the car we started snapping pictures and wondering how this all happened. What must it be like to live here? surrounded by caves and carvings and mulitcolored layers of stone dating back before time.
Ancient midevil village dating back 2000 years! Limestone canyon eroded by glaciers and rivers making the valley look like a giant quarry filled with caves and tunnels. Deep riverbed canyon, worn sedimentary layers of rock swirling through the sides and surrounding the town. A fortress was here once, with access by bridges, over water perhaps?  
On the drive back to Roujan and watching the sun slowly disappear over the horizon and then the sky turning multi coloured … we entered some small towns again. Driving through there is often a speed limit posted for “in town”driving. A few places have electronic sign posts to tell the drivers the speed they are going. And if you reach the limit posted or below a huge green Happy Face appears! I was delighted and found myself wanting to keep receiving this positive feedback. Great idea for back home, instead of words in red, visual positive universal messages in pleasant green. Love it!
And we have been told by some people we met in Europe that the large plane trees lining the roads were so ordered to be planted by Napoleon, the emperor at the time … as shading for his troops as they marked along the road ways. So old, so lovely and really a demonstration of caring by a leader in the past towards the men who worked for their country.
One of my favourite sights this trip has been driving these roadways lined with magnificent trees providing postcard vistas for the driver, tourists and locals alike to enjoy. If I found a calendar or postcard with the sights I have seen, I would buy them! Usually in the backdrop are the vineyards in midst of changing fall colours, different varietals to different hues, different locations on the hillsides or flat valley floors.  
Eye candy at its finest – I love the south of France in the autumn season!  
ciao from Pamela, in France

Voting Day in Canada …. and it is supper time in France!
Hello Canadian friends and family! Get out there and vote 🙂 I voted before I left on vacation and have been waiting to see results …..  
Today I started out early taking Francesco to a meet to catch a ride to Italy. Then back to the villa to wait for the others to rise. I enjoyed the quiet and scenic drive home. In fact fell in love, again, with the tree lined roads. Wow! Several times today I have again enjoyed them. Very close to the villa I go through several miles of them broken up by round abouts … LOTS of roundabouts.
We headed to the beach today … south towards Spain and the border. We did not make it all the way but we did get to Leucate Plage. It was a fantastic beach, big surf and miles of beautiful coarse sandy beach rich with shells and exfoliating sand massaging the feet. The surf was strong and powerful and beautiful. Some people swimming in the sunshine, some playing with families and some flying kites. Not too many people out there – I guess the season is all but over. I would stay here sometime if possible and really explore the area.
There was some delay getting here and we did not get as far south as I would have liked. Partly as we had an injury. Steve shut his right hand in the car door so we searched high and low for a pharmacy with tensor bandage and some antiinflammatory cream – which we found in Leucate town.
After the injury and before the pharmacy we found a town that does not show on my map. Fitou. We stopped at a wine tasting hoping that would help with pain management. They only offered a few sips of different wines so not really much assistance 🙂 Then we took an off road to investigate an old castle looking touristy area. Pretty spectacular and we took pictures and all enjoyed Sangria and some tapas for lunch. I could not partake in either so took pictures of antiques, the view, tapestries, quilts and flowers at the spot we had lunch. Magnificent and funky – like a hippy stop 🙂 forgotten in time. Almost no one there but a warm fire place on inside with big leather and very worn furniture. So fun – we took some time and enjoyed our stop.  
The beach at Leucate was amazing. The wild sea waves crashing in and meeting the coarse sandy / broken shell beach. Magic. I even recorded a video of the sound and motion so I can revisit the experience another time. Shoes and socks off and up to my knees in surf. It was not very cold, in fact, surprisingly comfortable and inviting. Mom collected some shells and small stones and the odd piece of well worn beach glass. It really was magical.