Two months just flew by!

Wow, that went fast! I thought I was going to write a post after our trip to the Toulouse area, but I wanted to sort out the pictures, first. That's where I made a mistake. I still haven't sorted them out.

After the July 14 parade, during which the planes seemed to be flying even lower as they went over our house, we left on Monday in order to arrive in Blagnac early enough on Tuesday to pick up the first of the Americans we spent a week with. We spent that Monday night in Brives-la-Gaillarde, a busy town, even on a Monday, when most shops are closed. There are not as many empty shops as we've become used to seeing in town centers. There were plenty of people in the streets and at the cafés.
On Tuesday morning, we arrived at the gîte in Blagnac where we stayed last year for the big family reunion. You might recognize the hens. They no longer lay eggs, but still peck around the yard.
First off, who was on this trip. As usual, I will not mention full names, which I know is annoying to some, but the other participants deserve their privacy. P -- my husband, K&S -- K is my cousin from LA and S, his wife. R&J -- from New York, R is a high school friend of K's and J, his wife. JT -- our Nogent neighbor who sent his elder son to K&S's house about 30 years ago to improve his English and has been a friend of K&S since then. Both R and JT are psychiatrists and have been friends since K&S introduced them. Seven people, two cars (ours and JT's).
K&S arrived at the airport, just 5 minutes from the house, in the morning. They had time to get settled in and we went to lunch across the street at a pizzeria, the first of the excellent restaurants on the street. Finished lunch and went back to the airport for R&J. That first day, we didn't budge from Blagnac. We went for a walk late in the afternoon, but everyone was just a ready for a relaxing day before we hit the tourist road.

Toulouse
France was in a heat wave. Toulouse is already very hot in summer, but in this heat wave, it was unbearably hot, but we survived. We started at Saint Sernin, from there walked to the Jacobins, where P finished high school, to the Garonne waterside for some refreshing drinks and more and more walking. We enjoyed a nice lunch on a terrace and then had to get back to the cars at Saint Sernin. The one thing missing was a swimming pool and we were just too tired to walk over to the Blagnac public pool.
Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges
Next on our to-do list was a drive down to Saint-Bertrand de Comminges in the foothills of the Pyrenees. This is a pilgrimage site on the way to Santiago de Compostela. It's a beautiful site. There aren't too many tourists, so you can actually see what you are visiting. However, it's become such an attraction that you have to park in a field at the bottom of the hill and there's a little train to take you up. They don't really indicate where you are supposed to get on the train. There was a a little bus/train stop looking place at the far end of the parking lot and we thought that was it. It wasn't. Once we did get to the train and saw there were three stops on the hill, we asked where we should get off. The driver just said it didn't matter. I had to be very specific in my question, where should we get off where we had the least walking to do. (K had a back ache and none of us really wanted to do a lot of uphill climbing in the heat, anyway.) Visiting the cathedral is free, but the cloisters visit is not. From the cloisters there's a gorgeous view of the valley and the cloisters are pleasant to just walk around. We got a combined ticket so that we could visit the basilica Saint-Just, just in the plain below Saint-Bertrand. We went there after lunch. Lunch was excellent -- on the terrace under a linden tree -- but very, very long. I prefer Saint-Just. It's a simple Romanesque church built with recycled stones, many of which seem to have been from Roman Empire times. While waiting for the others to finish up their visit, P and I had a nice chat with the woman at the ticket booth. She's from La Réunion and wants to visit Paris. We had hoped to drive up into the Pyrenees, so close, but lunch had taken up so much time, we just went back to Blagnac after Saint-Just. That happened to us, again, the very next day.
When we got back to Blagnac, we found, as expected, Em.&G, and a friend of G's from Switzerland. He had just flown in and they were going to spend the night in Blagnac with us and then go into Toulouse on Friday for art supplies. We had an excellent dinner at Le Temps Moderne, on the main street of Blagnac.

MoissacWe spent a morning at Moissac, visiting the gigantic Saint-Pierre church, part of the old abbey. Again, this is on one of the trails to Santiago de Compostela. The stone carvings are fascinating and there are beautiful, colored wood sculptures in the church. Both JT and P had insisted we visit, here, and they were right. But enough of churches!
We took them to Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val for lunch at l'Auberge des Sens. We got there a little later than expected and after lunch spent quite a while walking around the town. It's so pleasant when it's not a market day, although, it seemed the lack of tourists is a problem this year. By the time we were ready to leave, it was deemed too late to drive the short distance up to Em&G's place and spend an hour. That's really a shame, but we thought we'd go up on Monday for even a longer visit.

Saturday, some went back into Toulouse, P and I stayed in Blagnac. Sunday, we all went to Albi. I love how they've restored the interior of the cathedral. We've been there several times in the past few years. It's one of my favorite places to visit in France. The cathedral takes a long time to visit, especially if you want to take in the choeur and the treasury. And after the cathedral, there's the Toulouse-Lautrec museum, with a little stop at the garden on the side. Lunch and a longer visit to the garden before finding the cars and heading back "home". JT flew back to Paris for a funeral and came back on Monday evening.
Monday, everyone was tired of the long drives, so instead of going up to Em&G's place, we went back into Toulouse. We split up with a meeting point for lunch and later meeting point for the river/canal cruise -- not recommended. During the split up time, P and I went for a long walk to the garden and then to the canal, to where he used to live. We had lunch with K&S. and then joined the others at 2. We even managed to get on an earlier cruise than we'd reserved, but really, the cruise is avoidable. For us, it was an opportunity to be seated and in the shade.

The week was coming to an end. On Tuesday morning, we visited the Airbus 380 facility. It's a shame the plane has not been the success it was expected to be. They will have to shut down production. We then spent another hour, or so, in the museum. We thought we'd have lunch on site and got to the restaurant at 11:45, but they couldn't seat us, even though it was empty, because it was all reserved. My own feeling is that when there is only one food outlet at a tourist attraction, they should maintain a percentage of the seating for walk-ins, first come-first served. The rest of the day was just relaxing and packing. Wednesday, off to the airport and we drove up to Najac and JT went the opposite direction to continue his vacation with friends.

The trip we didn't take to Barcelona

A little over two weeks ago, Paul and I decided to get away for a few days. The Nov. 1 holiday, All Saints Day, meant that I didn't need to go into the library and since it always coincides with school holidays, my other activities were off, too. Where to go? Well, we could go east and visit our friends in Freiburg, Germany and Basel, Switzerland, or south towards Montpellier where we also have friends and then on to Barcelona. We chose to go south. 

We left on Wednesday morning and took the highway that goes through the Massif Centrale, through the volcano area beyond Clermont-Ferrand, through Ardeche to Millau, where we got off the highway to take smaller roads. From Millau there is a beautiful view of the new bridge on the highway. It is quite a high and long bridge. Since we got off before the bridge, we got to see the view. We knew we were heading for Aniane, which is a town north of Montpellier where Emma is interested in settling. There should have been a road that went though the hills of maquis, but we got to T intersection instead of being able to cross. So, really we ended up going on a big detour because we ended up on the highway again. 

Aniane is a town that seems to have a permanent population and activity. Nearby is St-Guilem-le-Desert, with its abbey. St. Guilem is all shut down for the winter. It's beautifully restored, but very touristy. There are gigantic parking lots as you approach and in season you have to park there and take the shuttle to the village. The shops, most of which are shut, are all tourist-trap type businesses. Almost every house is a "guest" house. On the far side of the hill -- go left instead of right -- is St. Jean de Fos, where the grape and olive growers live. There are lots of vinyards and olive groves all around the area. We spent Thursday morning driving and walking around those two towns and then headed down to Montpellier to see our former neighbors. They lived next door to us for a few years; he's American, from Cherry Hill, and she's Spanish, from Barcelona. They have a little boy, 6, and twin girls, 3 1/2. They certainly made a good move to a spacious house near the center of Montpellier and not far from the university. It was a pleasure to see them and have a nice family lunch with them before they themselves headed off on a holiday the next day. After lunch, and on their recommendation, we visited the Valmagne Abbey. Beautiful. The architect created the illusion of greater depth by making the pillars thinner (almond-shaped) and closer together at the far end. The stone is old seabed limestone, so you can see the shell incrustations. And it's a nice faded ocre color. It was raining off and on and by the time we got back to the hotel in Aniane, it was pretty non-stop.

The rain was heavy the next morning and the weather report was for heavy rain all day and the next few days, and according to the map, we figured it was going to be that way all the way to Barcelona. However, it looked like it might be clearer towards Toulouse. So, we headed westward towards Toulouse. We went to see the Lac de Salagou, which is another area Emma has been interested in. We could drive around the lake over the dam, so it was a long drive to get to the other side and see Celles, the village that was abandoned when they built the dam, but which did not end up under water in the end. In the rain and out of season, it's really desolate.

We continued, taking the smallest roads, zigzagging through the Montagne Noire, which was indeed dark in the rain. But it was a beautiful drive. The leaves are changing color (late, this year) and most of the trees still have their leaves. The road was sometimes tiny and it took us almost 8 hours for this short drive to Toulouse.

The next day, we spent the morning walking around Toulouse (St. Sernin, les Jacobins, the museum, ...), and then it was time to go see our old friends. We spent a few hours with them, catching up on families. We even saw their two girls, one, who lives near Pau now, and the other, who is a lawyer in Paris. 

On Sunday, we left a little early in order to reach the Lebelles in Pau for lunch. Again, we wanted to take the leisurely pace of the smaller roads. Unfortunately, I had left my notebook computer at the parking lot (I guess I put it down when I paid) and we had to go back to get it. Since I had handed in a voucher from the hotel, the parking lot attendant called the hotel and they called me -- oof!), so we headed back, picked up the computer, and then had to take the highway to Pau in order not to be late. We didn't want to miss lunch because Emmanuelle's parents were there and heading home after lunch. We hadn't seen them in 10 years, so it would have been a shame to miss saying hello, at least. 

Emmanuelle and Alexandre are great hosts; we did make it for lunch and stayed on over night. The next morning, under cloudless skies, we went for a nostalgic drive to Bagnères-de-Bigorre and then through the Vallée de Campan to the Tourmalet and then on to the Col d'Aubisque. As we left the mountains, we hit rain again and stopped for the night in Mont de Marsan. 

We headed home on Tuesday, through the Périgord and Dordogne. It was raining the whole time, so we didn't feel like visiting much of anything. Sarlat looked pretty full of people; we couldn't find a parking spot. We stopped for lunch, an excellent lunch at Les Viviers St. Martin, which seemed to be one of the very few restaurants open on the holiday.

At some point we ended up on a highway, the old N 20, but as we got closer to the toll road, on the approach to Paris, we got off again and meandered home.

I hope you open some of the links to the places I mentioned. 

Last week was an uneventful week at home and now I'm at Claire & Geoff's! I'm going to see Beth Levin later in the week when she comes to Manchester. Haven't seen her in 43 years; I hope we manage to find a little time to chat ;-)