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L-r: We head for the Saturday street market in Pézenas. It's not just the farm cheeses, the fresh seafood including anchovies and urchins, the handmade sausages. It's also the scarves on sale, the soaps of many scents, the Renaissance architecture that hides within, the local candymaker with the gorgeous shop, the drunk café waiter who spills a carafe of water across our table, the wild mushrooms, the favorite muscat grapes, Kris and Merri, and the flowers.
Fraternité, elaglité, a castle a day. This one's in nearby Margon. Then it's on to wine AOC, Faugéres, for a windmill hike and, aprés hike, a full tank of gas and a tasting.
This is what I stare at as I write in France, through a glass:
We improved on our nostrum: TWO castles a day keep that dern doctor away. Today's destination: Queribus and Peyrepertuse, both fog-shrouded. Drawback? No! In fact, we noticed that we paid far more attention to the castles on this visit, because we didn't have alluring, sun-splashed views of the Pyrenees beckoning from every rampart. L-r: Queribus: Merri demonstrates her archer's form (quite gifted); the arches in the main room; the place silhouetted; the Cathar knight I bought at the gift store, to be my well-armed friend; and foggy scenes. Then Peyrepertuse: we had to detour around road construction and discovered that the grapes were so ripe, they were falling from the vines.
Simone needed to work on the third edition of her book, due soon at the publisher's. Merri, Kris, and I piled off to the beach. L-r: The day begins by decalcifying the kitchen faucet, dipping it in vinegar for awhile. Off to an oyster restaurant in Bouzigues, home port for the nearby oyster farms. Hand-model-ish Merri displays the wine of the region: Picpoul de Pinet, a light, slightly fruity, uncomplex white grown especially to harmonize with oysters. Then, of course, the main attraction, fresh that day; we ate 24 amongst the three of us. The walls of Bouzigues use fish as signage. Then it's off to shell-combing at Marseillan. A poor man's pedicure: scraping bare feet through the crushed shell sand here. That's Mediterranean water sudsing out; warm enough to swim in, though it's October. Finally, we return home: that's the street behind our house and a neighbor's admirable marble-rimmed doorbell.
New rule: a castle a day keeps the doctor away. Merri and Kris are visiting. Merri, according to Kris, is "interested in everything" and has been reading up on castles. Which happen to be a specialty of the Languedoc region, where we live, thanks to hundreds of years of pretty much unending warfare. L-r: our guests as choice salad; our special, "secret" (not mentioned in any guidebook) castle in Montpeyroux, where we hiked the sun-baked fire trails for a few hours; the refreshing beverages later in a Pézenas cafe (photo credit: our accommodating waiter, who suggested this foursome pic); Merri gives you her best "litigator's look"; and, au naturelle, every day ends with a visit to "what would be the best bread store in America," only it's here in France, 5 minutes from our house.
The Causse is a limestone plateau 45 minutes from our house in France. L-r: Because I know you're as interested in backwards French signs as I am; the record-height viaduct that made Millau famous (and bypassable); different century: the 14th; inside La Couvertoirade (sp?), autumn strikes the cafes!; Simone teases the gnomes and, yes, they tease back; the postal box for the local fabric-and-coat designer; the Virgin and Child, as interpreted by South Park; sheep are the Causse region's celebrity animals, providing mother's milk for roquefort cheese and lamb's skin for gloves; plus the ivy turns coat.
Well, here we go again. Everyone piles into the car and drives to the best bread store we've found locally. In France, the competition is stiff. This would instantly become the best bread store in America were it relocated tonight. L-r: Kris demonstrates the after-hours automatic bread vending machine; we make our sweety selections; the final choices en box; Alain, one happy consumer.
With Alain and Aimee, junkmeisters, we head for the nearby seaport of Sete, which has a Sunday flea market. The pickings are thin. But there are other adventures, like the old mill next to the Roman bridge in the neighboring town, and the pedalo, which runs on an old, abandoned rail line. Later, it's home (that's our back door, cleverly disguised as a dump to discourage thieves), pruning of our new shrub, and relaxing. Those implements in our vaulted ceiling living room are from previous junking expeditions.
Pézenas, the artful, artsy town that anchors us to this region, is our regular Saturday shopping haunt, offering fruits and veggies, cheese, sausages, fish, soaps of the region, olives and nuts, flowers, and street entertainment like the Golden Man, who only moves when someone drops a coin in his cup.