The dog days of summer

Tomorrow is back to school, not only for our guys but for all their friends back home as well. I know. . . sniff, sniff. We took a few days off while our friends were here visiting, and fully enjoyed that, but it will also feel good to get back into a routine of sorts.

We have had a busy week. Highlights included the occasion of Ted's birthday (our friends treated us to an evening out, staying home with all the kids), seeing an impressive jousting show at Carcassone, doing a boat tour of the Canal du Midi, visiting the Mediterrean Sea for a beach day once again, and climbing Montsegur (a Cathar castle, known for being the last stronghold of oppostition against the Catholic Church where 220 Cathars were burned at the stake during the Albigensian Crusade). We also took in some of the festivities of the Cassoulet Festival in nearby Castelnaudary.

I have to say a couple of things about Montségur. First of all, I had never heard of the Cathar faith or the Albigensian Crusade before coming to this part of France. But it is a huge part of the history, culture, and toursim around here. Without getting into a very long-winded history of these events, I'll just say that the Catholic Church (particularly Pope Innocent III) was very threatened and angered by the Cathars who they viewed as heretics. There was a 20-year campaign to wipe them out. In this Languedoc region of France, many were sympathetic to the Cathars and provided them with refuge in great fortresses and castles in the area (usually owned by wealthy families who had their own reasons for not respecting the French king and/or Church). Montségur is a very significant Cathar fortress because it was the place where the final group of surviving Cathars were massacred. To be honest, I have read a bit now about the Cathar beliefs and I find it difficult to see what was so threatening or offensive about their faith, other than the Catholic Church feeling denied of absolute sovereignty in the region.

Anyway, the second thing I want to say (which is totally unrelated) is that I have a fear of heights. People who know me well already know this, but I mention it because it was a huge achievement for me to climb Montségur. The fortress sits atop a mountain in the Pyrenees region at a height of 3000 feet. When we pulled into the parking lot (as if the drive there was not bad enough, from a fear of heights point-of-view), I could not fathom how in the world we would get up there. I felt sick to my stomach. The guidebooks make comments like "avoid climbing on a windy day," one should have a head for heights", and "closely watch children". Here are a couple of photos to show you what I mean:

I decided I had to try, mostly for the sake of my boys. Here I've been telling them not to be afraid of going new places, trying new things, etc. so I knew I would be quite the hypocrite to let my phobia prevent me from sharing in this experience with them. So in the end, I had what I think psychologists would call some "implosion therapy" versus "systematic de-sensitization" and scrabbled my way up there with everyone. Both Mitchell and Jackson told me they were proud of me so that made it worthwhile. The view was also fantastic, for the few seconds that I spun my head around before making for the descent. Here are some photos from our weekend:

Our Kamloops friends (Todd & Becky, Ben, Talia and Micaela):

Canal du Midi:

Climbing around at Carcassone:

Awesome jousting show (called "Grand Tournoi de Chevalerie") complete with falcon:

Talia makes a friend at Narbonne beach:

Vineyard outside Narbonne:

Bonne anniversaire, Ted!

Cassoulet Day festivities on the Canal du Midi:

Giant Connect Four game at Cassoulet festival

View from top at Montsègur:

Climbing the walls of inner courtyard of the fortress:

Todd steps out on the ledge to take a photo - yeesh!

And of course Mitchell tries to freak out Mom:

Mitchell took a photo of a lizard he saw way up top:

I cannot believe my feet are actually up here!

Better to have our feet down safely on the ground, relaxing in St. Papoul:

Friends are coming!

We're excited because our good friends from Kamloops (formerly of Ottawa) are coming to St. Papoul today. Todd and Becky, and their three kids, are driving from Switzerland to Paris and have organized their route to pay us a visit as well. Their timing is excellent - the Fête du Cassoulet starts tomorrow in Castelnaudary. This is a essentially a festival to celebrate the region's most famous dish, cassoulet. Maybe I'll publish the recipe in a later post.

Cassoulet is a dish more suited to winter, as it's a heavy stew made with white beans, confit of duck or goose, and pork or Toulouse sausage. Various herbs add flavour and there is usually a topping of breadcrumbs, nice and crispy. It's always served in a brown, earthernware pottery bowl (called a cassole), also made in this region. Castelnaudary claims to be the birthpalce of the real, "le vrai", cassoulet. The festival will also include lots of free music concerts and stalls of artisans selling their crafts, as well as large tents set up along the Canal du Midi and in the public squares, selling local foods.

In the past few weeks, we've been to many such "fêtes" in the surrounding villages. Almost every evening, when it cools down to a comfortable temperature, we take a drive to a nearby community that is having their "marché nocturne" and sample the food, wine and atmosphere. Often there are local musicians playing as well. Some of our favourite marchés have included Carcassone (huge Spanish festival), Mirepoix, Montolieu, and Miravel-Lauragais. Montolieu intrigues me because it's called the "village of books". There are many bookshops in this small village (including an English one!), and a museum devoted to the history of books. We definitely want to pay a return visit in the daytime when all these bookshops will be open.

Here are a few photos from those outings:

Mirepoix marché (next 4 photos):

Mireval-Lauragais marché (our new friend Gerard, who makes wine in the area -we have visited his winery - now we see him at every fête in every little village):

Waiting in line to order a plate of frîtes:

Concert at Montolieu:

No Speedos, No Service

I love the title of this post - Mitchell came up with it. This post is part of his Language Arts lesson for today. He's also uploading two photos, so we could say he's doing some of the Arts curriculum as well :)

We started school on Monday, August 10th. We only "do school" in the mornings but I hope their learning goes on all day. You may wonder why we've started school so early - our goal is to get through alot of the math in these 3 months in France so we can unload the heavy Nelson textbooks we have with us. We will still have Math Trek on the laptop to keep up with math, as well as Millie's Math House, Math Circus, and Mathville. Ted tackles math with them, while I'm focusing on reading, reading comprehension and writing. We both fit the other stuff in around that. Everyday they add to their journal. Mitchell's is on the laptop while Jackson prefers to actually print in a notebook. Mitchell alternates between using Dragon Naturally Speaking one day and keyboarding the next day. He's getting good with Dragon now - even doing corrections and editing using the Dragon commands. We purchased version 10 before we left and I cannot get over how much better it works than our old version 8. Anyway, without further ado, here is Mitchell's summary of a little incident the other day at the local Piscine Municipale (local public pool). The first of many cultural misunderstandings to come, I'm sure.

(From Mitchell:)

Today, we decided to go to swimming in Castelnaudary, at the Piscine Municipale. But when we arrived, we quickly found out that the bathing suits that boys wear in Canada and the U.S were banned from the pool (board shorts versus Speedos). I felt angry and I thought it was unfair. We tried to talk to the lifeguard to ask him to make an exception, but he would not let us swim. They think our swimming suits are “unhygienic.” They offered to loan us Speedos to wear but I did not want to wear them and neither did Jackson. So we asked for our money back and left the pool and went to Lac de la Cavayére. We liked it because the water was very warm and the sand was not very rocky. People wore all kinds of bathing suits and nobody cared.

The discouraging notice . . .

Beautiful Lac de la Cavayére (near Carcassone) . . .

Gouffre Geant de Cabrespine

Yesterday was scorchingly hot, so we decided it would be the perfect day to take a tour of one of the famous underground caverns in the area. The days have been consistently cloudless and hot. Nothing to complain about, I know, especially since e-mails from friends in Ottawa tell us about the cool, wet summer happening there. Anyway, we made a return trip to the Narbonne-plage and almost died of sunstroke (okay, slight exaggeration). But there is no shade to speak of on this beach and the temperature has been reaching into the 40’s. At one point in the afternoon, we saw two little girls run across the sand, away from their parents, and then start screaming and hopping because the sand was burning their feet. The poor little things didn’t know to run straight into the water, so their father ran out to them, grabbed one girl in each arm and then ran out and plopped them into the sea. It’s that hot! So instead of visiting the beach again, the underground cavern tour gave us some cool relief.

We drove to a natural wonder called the Gouffre Geant de Cabrespine, which in English means “the Giant Hole of Cabrespine”. It’s just north of Carcassone in the Black Mountains (Montagne Noire), near the village of Villeneuve-Minervois. This Minervois region is also known for wine-making. The drive took us through some steep Gorges, which had the guys saying “wow, cool, look how high we are” and me just white-knuckling it in silence.

Cabrespine is apparently the deepest cavern in Europe and one of the deepest in the world. According to one brochure we read about it, the Eiffel Tower could fit into it with only the very top poking out. We took a guided tour (in French of course), but we were able to grasp that we were seeing aragonite crystal formations, stalagmites and stalactites, and limestone “curtains”. One room we were led into was called the “Red Room” because of oxidized iron salts that turn these curtain walls red. There were some beautiful still pools reflecting the amazing formations and on the way out, we were taken to the balcon du Diable (Devil’s Balcony) which gives a great perspective on the depth of the cavern (almost 200 metres). The tour we took was only 45 minutes long but it’s possible to sign up for a five-hour tour that involves wearing a helmet with light attached (like a real speliologist) and descending all the way down using harnesses and a safety line. We watched one group go down until they were like ants down at the bottom. One delightful thing about the cavern, for me, was it was so chilly I had to put Darlene’s jacket on! Walking back out into the sunshine felt like walking into a furnace.

We had a nice drive home, stopping at a winery for a tasting and brought a couple of bottles back with us from the Minervois region. The boys don’t like it too much when we stop in at wineries ("don't run around, don't touch anything"), even when there might be something they can try like a local cheese. Jackson will say, “I don’t want to try that. Look, it even says it’s disgusting!”, referring to the signs that invite passers-by for a complimentary “degustation” (tasting).

The Languedoc region

Our home for now, at the end of this tiny street

Colorful baskets at the Castelnaudary Market

Beach at Narbonne (Mediterranean Sea)

A new friend named Leo (stuffed turtle) - named after "Leo House" in Manhattan

Fields of sunflowers are everywhere around St. Papoul

Tiny windows at Carcassone castle, where the knights actually shot arrows from

Walking into the amazing medieval walled city of Carcassone

Who can resist sword-fighting here?

The Basilique Saint-Nazaire at Carcassone - we went to Mass here last Sunday

We’re settling into life here in the little village of St. Papoul in the Languedoc region of France. The house we’re renting, owned by a retired teacher (and her husband) from the school board where I work, is charming and rustic. It’s nice to have some space to spread out and to have a working kitchen as well as a total of three bathrooms! Let me tell you a bit about this house, this area, and our first week here.

The owners of this home provided us with detailed notes and information about the region, which has been very helpful. I will summarize a bit of it to give you an idea of life here. The Languedoc region of France is in the south, not far from the Mediterranean Sea. We’ve been blessed with wonderful warm, sunny days so far. The term “Languedoc” means, literally, “Language of the Occitan”, an old French dialect influenced by Spanish, used by the poets and troubadours of old. For example, instead of “oui” for yes, they say “oc”.

The area of the Languedoc region that we’re in is very medieval. Every little village has a rich history, with buildings (churches, abbeys, town squares) that date back hundreds of years. Our village is so tiny (population of 793) that it has no grocery store. Instead it’s served by mobile food services such as the fruit/vegetable van and the meat/ cheese van that come Wed. & Fri. mornings and the mobile pizza van that comes Sunday evenings. There is, however, a boulangerie (bakery) that is right here in town and we buy at least one baguette there every single day (except Mondays when she’s closed). There is also a restaurant/bar here and the owners are very nice. We’re only a short drive from the larger town of Castelnaudary, which has a huge grocery store (hypermarche they call it) and we’ve stocked up with lots of food staples from there.

St. Papoul lies between the foothills of the Black Mountains (La Montagne Noire) and the Pyrenees Mountains. It’s most known for the Abbey located here (Abbaye de Saint Papoul). The Abbey is a former Benedictine monastery that dates back to the 8th century. Today it is the parish church but many people come to see it for its Gothic cloister and sculptures by a famous sculptor known as the Master of Cabestany.

The house we’re renting has quite a history of its own. It’s a medieval structure and is officially an historic site. It’s a timber and stone construction and is considered large for a French home in this area. It was reconstructed in 1717, replacing a mostly wooden structure. It may have contained the forge of the village smithy. The house consists of three storeys, with two separate staircases to reach different areas. The main floor has the eat-in kitchen, dining room, large living room, and doors to a small but lovely back patio. Ted is enjoying watering the owners' plants and tinkering with the garden. There is also a powder room with laundry on the main floor. The layout is very functional. On the second floor, the boys are sharing a very large, sunny room with two beds and an ensuite two-piece bathroom. They access it from stairs in the living room. We have a smaller room, just off the main bathroom, also on the second floor. It’s accessed from stairs that lead from the kitchen. There is a third floor loft space and an attic area. It seems to be used mainly for storage. So, we definitely have all the space we need! We set up a desk area for Mitchell in the living room and Jackson uses the dining room table for his projects.

During medieval times, this village was protected by high ramparts. Many of these still exist and the rear wall of this house was in fact part of the original rampart (still visible). Access to this village (and to most villages around here) was though gates. These are still visible also. The streets are very narrow, with all the houses set close (no front yards here!)

One of the most amazing sites we’ve seen so far has to be Carcassone. Carcassone is considered to be the best restored medieval walled cite in Europe. UNESCO designated it a World Heritage Site in 1997. Carcassone was the setting where the movie Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves (starring Kevin Costner) was filmed. There is much to say about Carcassone, the castle itself as well as the legends behind it, so I will leave that for another post.

I would say the second most amazing thing we’ve done this week was drive to the gorgeous beach at Narbonne (called Narbonne-plage), where we swam in the salty seas of the Mediterranean. We have also explored another lake closer to home, but the seaside beach completely spoiled us. Uncle Ken and Auntie Terry would be happy to know that the first thing Mitchell said when we got there was, “This is the second-nicest beach I’ve ever seen!” and then went on to explain that the nicest was the one at their beach-house in Florida.

Bonjournee!

Video of Paris Re-Loaded

I found out why the photo video we did of Paris took so long to upload into YouTube. I had chosen some music (which I purchased and downloaded through iTunes) to go with the slideshow, not realizing you can't put it on YouTube for copyright reasons. I got an e-mail from YouTube telling me that "Koch Entertainment" had registered a complaint. The music I used was Edith Piaf's version of "La Vie en Rose", as well as Louis Armstrong's version of the same song, and "I Love Paris" sung by Dean Martin ad Maurice Chevalier. Cheesy yes, but we liked it! The only reason the kids liked "La Vie en Rose" was because of the movie Wall-E. Anyway, I had to do something called "AudioSwap" so here is the same slideshow but with different, approved-by-YouTube music. The thing I like about YouTube better is that you can enlarge their videos. So please enjoy!

Travel Day 17 - August 2, 2009

(From Ted):

Blog, Blog, Glog…

One year left to go until we get home but here we are in the south of France (it’s a hard job but someone’s got to do it) settling into our new life, sipping on something red while the kids go down the street to terrorize some as yet unknown neighbour. We have to get used to not having the television or the Internet. We will get the Internet but we have to wait until we get details about the provider.

Saint Papoul is a small village in the French countryside. The farms around here seem to be growing sunflowers in a large enough quantity to be commercial growers. We haven’t explored much since getting here yesterday. We left Paris on Friday the 31st in our new Peugeot 207 station wagon traveling approximately 500 km. We stopped and stayed over in Limoges the capital of fine china from France where little French men paint the plates and they charge exorbitant prices for the privilege of ownership. I do actually appreciate the beauty of the tableware because it is very nicely done. Saint Papoul is another 3-4 hours south of Limoges.

Our car arrangement was something I discovered while on French language training which is, by the way, coming in quite handy, thanks to the government of Canada and all taxpayers of Canada. I forget the name in French, but I read about the program in an article at the time from the Montreal Gazette that was pointed out to me by my teacher. It’s essentially an ownership/sell back program direct with the manufacturer of a completely new vehicle. It’s only available to non-EU residents. It’s minus most of the sales taxes. It’s intended for stays greater than 21 days. I was somewhat skeptical and thought at first impression that it was a more expensive option. But after doing some research and comparison shopping I found it to be a reasonable way to go. Both Peugeot and Renault have agents in Canada and the US for travelers who are Europe bound. The Peugeot program is called Peugeot Open Europe and can be found at http://www.peugeot-openeurope.com/ .We’ll keep you posted on the outcome. The arrangements were made in Canada through the agent in Montreal and I had the paperwork before we left. I called a couple of days ahead of time in Paris and it was ready for us when we were expected. It’s a nice little run about with a 5speed transmission and enough space to handle this family of four and our gear that we needed to take this far. If you see us tooling around Ottawa in a Peugeot 207 SW then you will know that it did not go exactly as planned.

Over the next three months we will slow down and settle in to a more relaxed routine of local travel, day trips and days at home with a base. This, from the feverish pitch of getting ready to leave along with getting our house ready, and the hectic two weeks in New York and Paris (which I thoroughly enjoyed) we can perhaps find a calm that will allow us to enjoy this place and our time together. If only our hyperactive, over programmed, Nintendoized kids can do the same.

TE

Limoges - home to procelain and fine china . . .

Our new kitchen . . .