The Little Words Mean the Most

France: Day GR -- Greggie sighting

Click to enlarge the photo and reveal the secret.

France: Day S - Salagou

Lac du Salagou was an agricultural project originally that became a major tourism and recreation attraction. A dam plugs the edge of an ancient brick-red volcano crater, creating a lake big enough to sail small boats on. We hiked the shore and adjacent heights. Last shot: coming home to Valros at sunset. Click on any image to enlarge and tickle the bees.

France: Day W -- Wine gun

We have a policy at the house in France. I like shopping all over creation for boutique vineyards. We have all these books on Languedoc-Roussillon wine. I buy a case or two of what I like, here and there. They're stored in a locked room. Family and special guests have access to that room. The simple deal: drink what you like, just replace it with something nice. Alain and Aimee took nephew Max's (age 10) gun and made the message more polarizing. I broke a rib laughing. Click on image to enlarge and appreciate the molecules.

France: Day R -- Ravin des Arcs

The name says it all: the highlight of this hike in the Larzac is a naturally carved arch at the bottom of a ravine. The ravine is 100 meters down one side and 100 meters up the other: 328 feet each way, the height of a 32-story house. The hole I've climbed into was carved into a boulder on the riverbed by the annual floods. The limestone here is sometimes soft enough to etch with a fingernail. Click any image to enlarge and savor the morsels.

France: Day G -- Les gorges de la Buèges

You keep finding these places: perfect little towns, where everything is cute and charming and artful. Often in the middle of nowhere. As if some civic-minded resident had discovered the lost treasure of the Templars and spread it around, so every residence got a nice sprucing up. Saint-Jean-de-Buèges is one of these places, nestled in a lost deep valley between stark limestone mountains, guarded by its modest castle. The walk rambles pleasantly alongside the modest river, with ascending/descending of just 60 meters. Everything needed for a few hours on the trail I can carry in my two-bottle pack. Click any photo to enlarge and smell the roses.

France: Day P -- Pots

St. Jean de Fos is a pottery town at the mouth of the gorge where the Herault river débouchés. Good clay deposits established the town's principal manufacture in Roman times. With a decline in that trade, houses were built on the clay deposits. But a recent renaissance of pottery-making has restored the industry, if not the deposits; the clay is now imported, ironically enough, from Italy. As we drove by, the pots on the left caught our eye, so we stopped and bought a few items at this atelier, where the workers were yucking it up. They have a nice mixture of traditional and contemporary designs. The big bud-like thing on the right is a finial for tile roofs.

France: Day T -- The Tower

Today's daily goal: critiquing Save the Children's major donor newsletter. & done. Then a walk around the 'hood to see what the town had done to spruce up its major surviving historical object (aside from the church and the vaults in our living room): the early medieval watch tower that stands atop the low eroded volcano Valros is built on. Houston, we have a restored tower with nice views and captivating rust-metal signposts. Click on any photo to enlarge & smell the roses.

France: Day V -- Valros

Our little pedestrian street is gentrifying. We're the house with blue shutters and white facade. It's comforting to be the worst house on the best street dead center in this old town. With the circus coming. Fresh paint on the streets. And a new 3D relief map of the region posted for the orientation of guests on the side of our bookcase.

France: Day M -- Montpellier

The international guitar festival has arrived in this methodical, mad, mesmerizing, monster Mediterranean city of 400,000.

France: Day 9 -- What the market said today

L-r: "Arrogant Frog" is a brand name used by award-winning local vineyard, Paul Mas; the Paul Mas promise: "Old World Wines with New World Attitude." Extra-lean sausage rolled in marble dust. We scored one of these lettuce heads as well as a large bottle of ginger syrop (the seller's special recipe: a dash of lime juice, club soda, and syrop). The men's underwear on offer is "shockingly" suggestive. The umbrella display was brilliantly graphic. And the fresh pasta from Italy included a roll stuffed with ham and mozzarella.