La Vie en Foussais » holiday

That was the summer that was

Richard — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 11:46:23 +0000

And so the summer rushes to an all-to-speedy close. As we put away the spare bedding and began planning for going back to school, its time to reflect on what has been a fantastic first summer here in France. We seem to have done so much and the holiday felt like it was 6 months, never mind 2.

Pendant les vacances, we…

spent a wonderful 2 weeks exploring Carcassonne and the surrounding area, saw the Tour de France and witnessed an incredible Bastille Day celebration at la cité…

discovered we all loved cats…

and soon after, welcomed Charlie and Lola, our kittens who have now taken over our lives…

entertained Nathalie & Thierry + boys…and Helen and her family…

managed to get out and about again with my parents…

enjoyed a fabulous evening’s entertainment at Nieul-sur-l’Autize…

entertained Diane and John…

filled the pool again…

were delighted to welcome Kathryn, Sam & the boys after so much uncertainty…

visited the beautiful Ile de Re…

and had simply the most fun possible with Annie, Drew and the girls…

In fact, we’ve been so busy, I think now we could do with a holiday!

Campsites and coastlines – End of summer ’08 part 1

Richard — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:23:45 +0000

Yesterday we said more farewells, this time to some very special friends, Annie & Drew and their 3 lovely girls, who have been desperate to come and see us since we first bought the house almost a year ago now. With one thing and another they were only able to come for 3 days, and I think we all wish it had been 3 weeks, we had such a wonderful time and had great fun. Just the best way to end our first summer in France.

We managed to have some of the best days out with our final visitors, enjoying places old and new. So I’ll break these down into 3 posts to give each one the focus it deserves.

First we spent a while with them at their camp site – Sequoia Parc [website] near Marennes. This very attractive site reminded us of the place we used to visit for our holidays near La Palmyre – lots of great slides and pools for the kids, entertainment at night, great accommodation. After meeting Annie, Drew & the kids we went into the pool area to test the water. Its a shame it was a cool morning as it made the pools feel even colder than they normally do – not something that seemed to bother the kids much, but the adults were glad to be warm and dry again!

After shivering for too long, we decided to go and find something for lunch then head out to la Cote Sauvage, a breathtaking stretch of beach nearby, and a place that holds many memories for us. The morning was partly spoiled by the discovery that someone had stolen Molly’s flip-flops from the communal shoe-storage area outside the pool complex. We could have believed it if they had been a swanky pair of designer sandals, but as they were only £2 flip-flops from Primark, we were somewhat perplexed. Luckily Annie lent us some spare shoes so Molly didn’t have to spend the rest of the day barefoot.

La Cote Sauvage was fantastic. As I posted previously [here], this place had a huge impact on us when we first visited, and it has drawn us back time and again. La cote sauvage means The savage coast, and on this day it really lived up to its name – a strong wind blowing in off the Atlantic conjured up huge waves that seemed to roll in from a mile out to sea. The tide was crashing further and further inland, forcing us to relocate about 4 times to avoid the incoming torrent. But what a fantastic feeling it was to be blown about by the wind, while jumping over the waves, all under the watchful gaze of la Phare de la Coubre, the huge old lighthouse that guards this treacherous stretch of coastline.

After a great day, and a final dinner with the folks back at the campsite, we headed home to prepare for their visit to our house a few days later, full of hope for a great few days together.

In part 2 – all about Le Parc de Pierre-Brune, and passing the mussel test!

Carcassonne: A quick holiday overview

Richard — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 13:08:38 +0000

I know there’s nothing worse than boring people senseless with holiday photos and videos and “First we went here, then we went there, then we did that…” kind of stories, so I’ll not bother with all that. I’ll just give you an overview of some of the highlights. (Though if you do want all 600+ photos, go see my Flickr account here: www.flickr.com/photos/aragornsbeard)

Firstly, the landscape is stunning. Les Montagnes Noir to the north, the Pyrenees to the south and fields and fields of vines and, towards the end of the holiday, sunflowers. Just beautiful. And with all the hills around, there is no end of good viewpoints to enjoy it from. We drove up into the pyrenees and somehow managed to find ourselves driving up the biggest mountain in the region (2001m!). It was rather scary, but we felt rather proud that we had managed it.

Carcassonne itself is a city in 2 halves – la bastide and La Cité. La Cité is the ancient medieval walled city that has been restored into a magnificent structure that dominates the skyline. It’s a very magical place, steeped in history and legend. This region is Cathar country and La Cité was one of the few safe places for followers of this religion, until the crusaders arrived and wiped them out. La bastide is a slightly more recent addition, consisting of classic chessboard arrangement of streets around a central square. We spent several days exploring la cité, but never really visited the bastide very much this time around. I found la cité to be a fascinating place, and I love the history and folklore around it. After a while I did start to find it a little too commercialised though, with every street stuffed full of shops and restaurants. But i guess this is necessary if the tourists are going to keep the place alive.

Bastille Day was amazing. We joined thousands of other people gathered around la cité to watch the most spectacular firework display we have ever seen. Huge fireworks lit up the entire sky with a million tiny stars, bursting into different colours and patterns. At one point the whole of la cité seemed to be on fire! Quite incredible.

We went to Foix to watch the end of stage 11 of the Tour de France, which was another really great experience. We had imagined getting quite bored waiting hours for the riders to flash by in 10 seconds flat, but in fact the build-up was the best part of the day. There were people giving our freebies all day – water, hats, bags, sweets, foam hands, keyrings… all manner of stuff was given out. There was dancing, singing, competitions… such a great atmosphere, that the race itself really became just a side-show. As it was,the riders did race past in 3 seconds flat and we barely saw them, but it was a great day nonetheless.

We enjoyed having a pool all to ourselves. The kids had a whale of a time and we had several night of late-night silliness round it.

The house has a cat, Tickle. Before the holiday we were not really bothered about cats, but, having spent 2 weeks with this ginger tabby, we are all smitten. She really won us over and very quickly became part of the routine. So much so that the only way we could get the children to leave the house was by promising them that we would get a cat of our own when we returned. What a transformation! So if you live near me and you have a spare cat you would like to be re-homed, drop me a line.

Overall we had a wonderful time and look forward to hopefully returning again next year as there is still so much to explore. If anyone is looking for a new region to visit, I would certainly reccomend Carcassonne.

Home again, home again, jiggety jog

Richard — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 15:43:13 +0000

as my mum would say.

Yes we’re back from a lovely 2 weeks in Carcassonne. I’ll be catching up with emails and work stuff as a priority, but will post all about our trip and upload some pics as soon as I can this week. Thanks for the comments while we were away, keep them coming!

À bientôt

Richard — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 15:26:11 +0000

Well my friends, its time for un petit vacances, so I will not have time to post anything for a little while. You can keep tabs on our jaunt to Carcassonne by following me on Twitter [richard_barley on Twitter.com].

In the meantime, have fun without me and, needless to say, I shall fill you in on the trip when I return.

À bientôt!