Category: France

Bugarach: ‘Doomsday Destination’

The castle at Coustassa glimpsed through the mist
The mists begin to clear
This is a walk past dozens of capitelles: shelter for sheep farmers & vineyard workers in former times.
First view of Bugarch.
Glance the other way, and it’s the Pyrenees
‘Bugarach! It’s over there!’

Cold.  Pale thin fog baffles the contours of the hillsides, and those of the distant castle at Coustassa.  Glimmering frost bristles the short maquis grass beneath our feet.  A watered lemony sun high above us attempts to burn winter away, and eventually does so.

That’s when we have our first view of Bugarach, the imposing thick-set mountain which dominates this part of the Aude, because it stands alone, rather than as part of a range, and today is pretty much thatched in snow.

Bugarach has been in the news for a while.  Here’s BBC’s ‘From our Own correspondent’ back in July 2011:

‘According to an ancient Mayan calendar, at some point towards the end of 2012, the world will come to an end.

It is not clear how that will happen, but apparently humanity does not stand a chance – except for those who seek shelter in the area surrounding Bugarach.

Just 200 people live there all year round, but doomsday believers and spiritual groups are convinced the village has magical powers, thanks to the local mountain – the Pic de Bugarach.

For years, rumours have circulated on the internet that extra-terrestrials live in the mountain, and come the apocalypse, the top will open and they will emerge with spaceships, and rescue the local inhabitants.’

Although it’s quite hard to entertain the idea that the mountain might be some sort of underground UFO car park, there are plenty of people who have done so, and with great fervour.  Here’s today’s Daily Mail, which has been talking to Jean-Pierre Delord, Mayor of the tiny village of Bugarach (pop. 176).

‘On Wednesday, he will close the village for five days to anyone who doesn’t live here or isn’t already booked to stay, and draft in hundreds of police, military, firemen and Red Cross to ban any gatherings, shut off the mountain and arrest anyone silly enough to try flying over it.

‘What if tens of thousands of people turn up?’ he says, throwing his arms up in the air. ‘I have no way of knowing what will happen. I have no crystal ball! I don’t care if people want to chant naked or talk to the trees, but I have to protect my villagers. I am responsible for them.’’

He’s not over-reacting.  Local house-owners have been able to rent out their homes for the period in question for astronomical prices, and even camping spots are going for 400 euros a night.  For most locals though, the whole thing is at best a nuisance, at worst a real headache.  The nearer we get to December 21st, the more people descend on the area, and the police and army are already involved in keeping order.

We enjoyed our views of Bugarach, as ever.  We spent time pretending to look for UFOs and generally mocking the New-Agers who are so convinced by the end of the world as we know it.  Then we got on with the business of enjoying our walk in the here-and-now.  Here are some photos of our day.

A long day: Team UK (Laroque branch) support the Tour de France

The Tour de France 2012 hit Laroque on the Limoux – Foix stage on Sunday 15th July. It was a long day…. and that was just for the supporters.

The day before, passing through Quillan, we passed whole communities of camper vans holed up in prime spots for watching the race.
Unlike the Ariègeoise a fortnight before, there were plenty of signs to stop the poor old riders going wrong
And here at Laroque, we had our own rules and regulations to keep the event running smoothly.
Team UK (Laroque branch) prepare a poster to support the British competitors.
And here’s Brian, chalking all the Brit names across the route. He got a huge cheer from French spectators the whole way down the street. There are more of them than seems likely from this shot.
The pre-Tour caravane begins. They’re selling official merchandise. Everything that follows is free.
But while it was still pretty quiet, we had ‘a nice cup of English tea’ with neighbour Aisha
The LCL float, distributing baseball caps.
The Haribo float. Sarah caught a tiny bag of sweets flung in her general direction.
The Belin Box
Banette. They produce flour for local bakers.
You can have a flutter on the races at a PMU bar. Here’s their float.
Sarah gets a cocktail sausage
Free madeleines when the St. Michel float passed. Not Worth Getting Fat For.
No free tyres when the Kleber float passed
Almost over….. the Nesquick float.
The haul we found we had after everything had passed by, mainly destined as souvenirs for friends in England…. lucky people.
The first riders pass. Sue can identify almost all of them.
Bradley Wiggins passes our front door. No time to stop.
Team support.
Yet more riders…. known to Sue.
With the riders long past, all that’s left are support vehicles, official cars, medical support, press, gendarmes……..

Thanks Sue, thanks Tom for the use of all your photos.

The Tour de France: a dilemma

La Boulangerie Fonquernie at Laroque prepares for the arrival of the Tour de France

We have a few of the family here staying with us.  They claim that they want to see us.  They’ve mentioned walking in and near the mountains.  They certainly want good food and wine – lots of it – whether here at home or in one of the restaurants in the patch.

Really though, they’ve chosen this weekend with some care.  It’s the one when the Tour de France whizzes past our house.

Today then has been a day of careful research in advance of Sunday’s ‘fly past’.  There was a planning meeting at a nearby restaurant, ‘La Maison’, over copious and varied hors d’oeuvres, blanquette d’agneau and bavarois de framboises to decide what we should choose as our vantage point for the action.

We’ll have the planning meeting after we’ve got outside this little lot

Then there was the walk.  This followed the Voie Verte between us and la Bastide sur l’Hers, and closely hugs the route the cyclists will take; and the ridge path between la Bastide and home, which peers down over the same road.  Where to choose to watch?

We’d thought of the land occupied by the old station.  A film crew has moved in for the duration.  We considered looking up towards the race from the old railway line itself.  Too far away.

And the ridge, which we’d thought the perfect answer, turns out not to be.  Certainly we could see many hundreds of metres of road at once, but at a distance that means that we’d be doing no better than sitting at home in front of the TV.

We’ve decided against watching from here.

In the end, we’ll be staying put.  We want to see the riders close up, smell the sweat, and absorb the atmosphere.  There are still decisions to be made.  Upstairs in one of the bedrooms?  If so, which one?  Downstairs on the street, where we’ll be nearer still?

Shall we ham it up and decorate the house in Union flags, and hang banners reading ‘Go Wiggins’ out of the window?  So many decisions, so little time.

Freecycling French style

Back in the UK, I was part of the Harrogate Freecycle mafia. The members of this online community offer goods they no longer require for free to other members. One or two members, in difficult circumstances, have managed to find carpets, washing machines, beds and tables courtesy of the generosity of fellow Freecyclers.  Most of us have acquired something for the toolbox or garden, or a child’s toy, bedding for a dog, a director’s chair, a bookcase, or…. or… .  some other thing that another member no longer wants but doesn’t want to see ending up in landfill.  And most of us give at least as much as we receive, and enjoy the relationships we forge as a result.

In Laroque, a small group of us were keen to replicate this success. Outside the main urban areas, Freecycle isn’t as well established here. There were certainly no other local groups, and Freecyle themselves weren’t helpful.  So one of the councillors set up a mini-site on the town’s website. It sort of works, but you couldn’t say we’ve exactly reached critical mass yet. In fact all Malcolm and I have managed to offer successfully have been some odd-shaped pillows which a local puppeteer thought might come in handy for something.

But maybe it doesn’t matter much. Informal Freecycling is alive and well.

One of those communal rubbish bins: no freebies here

Here, as in most of France, there’s no domestic refuse collection service for every home. Instead, householders take their rubbish to the communal bins situated in almost every street. What we discovered is that people who are discarding something that might still have some life in it place it outside the bin. And it won’t last long there. Last week we put out three old mirrors, a set of crockery (that I’d rescued from a skip in England not because I wanted it, but because I couldn’t bear to see it go to waste) and a bedside light. They were gone within half an hour. We recently acquired a good frying pan and a huge stock pot. As I rescued this last item, Malcolm noticed an indignant woman turn tail and go back home.  She’d clearly been thwarted in her plan to claim that same stock pot.

Now then, I’ve just found some of those old raffia covered wine bottles lurking in the atelier.  I think those can go out next.

Tomorrow’s local Freecycling opportunity

‘Comment shoppez-vous?’

Stuck in a waiting room with a pile of magazines between me and my appointment time, my idea of hell is a choice between fashion mags and ones about cars.

Less so in France, at least as far as the fashion ones are concerned.  It’s not that I’m more interested in being stylish and chic here.  I simply have fun reading the articles and noting the ‘English’ words and phrases on almost every line.

Are you a sophisticated lady? Cool? Relax et sexy?  Show-off? Perhaps you aim for le twist sporty-glam, or like le mix et le match, le style ‘street’, or le fun et le trash.

Down at the shops are you looking for un look color block, le style boyish ou girly, arty-trendy, crazy doll, grungy girl?  If you’ve any sense, you’ll have made a shopping list, to make sure you come home with le jean,  le blazer, le trench, le legging, les shoes (with kitten-heel perhaps), and perhaps one or two it pièces.  Then you could really get to show off and expect le red carpet treatment.

When it comes to make-up, I hope you don’t like le make-up too much.  Light is so much more subtle.  If you’re a beauty addict perhaps you should be looking for un effet sixties, or un twist, using liner and shadowing your eyelids en smoky or flashy to achieve le total-look of your choice.  Then you’d look a real star.

It’s pretty exhausting really.  That’s why keeping up with fashion isn’t very high on my to do list.

Le twist sexy-glam as seen in ‘Le Figaro’

Four seasons for the price of one

A lizard hopes summer’s on its way

I’m writing this in Laroque.  I have the feeling that whether you’re reading this in France, England, elsewhere in Europe or even in more far-flung places you’ll be sharing something of the same experience.

Get up in the morning and peek though the shutters.  Perhaps it’s raining.  Perhaps not.  But whatever: it won’t last.  We’re getting used to having all 4 seasons – several times – in the course of a single day.

The other day, blazing sunshine and a brilliantly clear blue sky brought the lizards out and had us stripping down to our T shirts.  Minutes later we were reaching for fleece jackets and shortly after that we had to scurry indoors….a hail storm.  And what a storm! Hail stones as big as Maltesers flung themselves noisily against the shutters and scythed down young leaves and shoots in the garden.

May hailstorm

At other moments puffy white cumulus meandered across the sky and minutes later angry violent gusts of wind tugged sullen heavy grey clouds into view.  But this time two years ago, we had snow in May, lots of it.  Let’s hope summer will arrive soon, as it did that year.

Laroque cloudscape, looking southwards
Laroque cloudscape, looking northwards

Gracious aires

One of the pleasures of motorway driving in France is the chance to have a sustained break in one of the aires, or service areas.  Not the run-of-the-mill petrol station plus eatery and shop. They have those too.  As in England, they offer the chance to eat indifferent food at over-the-odds prices, and to spend a small fortune if you’ve been unlucky enough to need to tank up there.

No, in France, roughly every other service area is all but unserviced.  There are parking spaces, toilets, a telephone, and not much else: nowhere to spend money, in any case.  There may be a children’s play space set among trees, and perhaps picnic benches.  And that is their charm.  They’re generously sized areas, set well away from traffic noise, and offer a real chance to get away from the stress of a long drive with a relaxing walk in the woods or a picnic in the shade.

Perhaps my favourite is on the southbound carriageway of the A20 in the Limousin.  I first stopped by chance at L’Aire de la Coulerouze when I was driving down alone to Laroque a few years ago.

Earlier that day, I had picked up the makings of a picnic at the market at Levroux.  I’d got bread, and a young goats’ cheese.  I’d bought fresh apple juice from some nuns who had a stall, and an apricot producer had sold me a couple each of every apricot variety he grew so I could have my own personal taste-test session.

Down by the riverside at Coulerouze

At Coulerouze, I found picnic tables and was about to settle myself down when I noticed wooden steps leading downwards.  There at the bottom was a bridge over a small river all but encircling a small wooded glade, with a single bench under an apple tree.  The only sounds were the birds singing, and the river tumbling along its path.  I spread out my lunch and relaxed.   Afterwards, I found there was a path.

The signpost to the path

It took me first of all along the river, and then along fields and hedgerows.  The walk wasn’t a long one, but it was all I needed to forget the many miles I’d already driven that day, and the four or five hours driving that still awaited.

Not all these aires are quite so special.  There are some horrors near Rouen.  But find a good one, and it’ll become a treasured destination, somewhere to aim for with pleasure on a long day’s driving.

The campaign for a President

During the British General Election we were in France, and kept up to date with the campaign via the French media, with particular thanks to British pundits and MPs with a command of the French language.

During this French Presidential campaign, we’ve been in England.  After the first round of voting last Sunday, a French friend helpfully sent me the results, as she feared statistics of this kind wouldn’t be considered newsworthy in dear old Blighty.

Actually, she needn’t have worried.  I’ve been surprised at how thoroughly the French elections have so far been covered.  The broadsheets, and both radio and television could be relied on to have some slant on the campaign every day.  Much of the discussion has revolved round how the Franco-German alliance would fare if Angela Merkel has to forge a relationship with Hollande rather than Sarkozy.  Other articled focussed on how, for many voters, it was perhaps more a question of who to vote against, rather than who to vote for.

Since Sunday’s first-round vote, after which it became clear that the Front National under the leadership of Marine le Pen had mopped up getting on for a fifth of the vote, the spotlight has changed to the rise of the far right throughout Europe.  Le Pen herself has been the subject of examinations of her career to date, and Sunday’s Observer also carried a double-page spread on François Hollande, as he’s so far a pretty much unknown quantity here.

Hollande's double-page spread in Sunday's Observer

I’ve appreciated this coverage, as it’s been a little hard to get to grips with all the issues in France itself, as the media assumes a basic understanding of the major parties and alliances which we don’t necessarily have.  But we’ll be back there by the time of the second round of voting, and will have a first-hand view of France as it wakes up on May 7th either to a new Socialist president, or, as seems less likely, another dose of Sarkozy.  So far, in our left-leaning corner of France, we haven’t met anyone who’ll admit to ever having voted for him.  In fact the two main candidates of the left, socialist Hollande and far-left Mélenchon knocked Sarkozy into 3rd place in our own commune of Laroque d’Olmes

Sarko - on the way out?

M et Mme Bibendum

Bibendum himself, or Michelin Man.

We want a job.  Not any old job.  We want a job that equips us with a Michelin book of maps, a decent lunch allowance, money for petrol, and a green felt tip pen.  We don’t even expect to be paid.

What we want to do is become Michelin Inspectors.  Not of Michelin starred restaurants – though perhaps they could send us to dine in one from time to time.  No, we want to inspect all their ‘green roads’, the ones they regard as especially scenic and maybe worth a detour.  And we want to make suggestions of our own,

The D6 for instance, from just outside Mirepoix to Castelnaudary.  How could that not be a green road?  The route twists and turns, echoing the contours of the wonderful rolling hillsides, with the most majestic of the peaks that the Pyrenees can offer as a distant backdrop.

The roads round Castelnaudary, all innocent of green route status

Or the D625, which brings you back from Castelnaudary another way.  Compared with those, some of the highways in the centre of France which are rated green are rather dull.  ‘Huh! Officially pretty?’ we snort, as we drive along the endless D 976 near Romorantin.

Really, they should give the job to us.  We know a route that’s worth a detour when we see it.  And we’re both pretty handy with a green felt tip pen.

By the way, I forgot to take my camera with me on Friday when we drove along the above-mentioned D6 and the D625.  Please accept a view of the Canal du Midi in Castelnaudary itself in lieu.

Mufti *

Before I came to spend so much time in le fin fond de l’Ariège (‘back-end-of-beyond’ to you) I subscribed to the general British view that being well groomed and chic came naturally to the French.

Not so.  Frankly, looking as though you spend time studying the fashion pages forms no part of anyone’s life round here. Well, we’re a small country town here, so it’s scarcely surprising: but things don’t seem so very different in the bright lights of the department’s capital Foix (pop. 10,000), or the one Big City, Pamiers (pop. 19,000).

What’s surprised me though are the clothes worn by those people in service industries whose work brings them into contact with the general public.  In the UK, working for a bank, building society or even Marks & Spencer means that you’ll be fitted out with a uniform featuring a smart blouse or shirt at the least.  And men will be wearing ties.  School teachers don’t wear uniform of course, but their dress code requires them to be ‘smart-casual’ at the least, and yes, ties for the men.

Little of that applies here.  The only men I’ve ever seen wearing ties in France have been politicians or top businessmen making their mark on the TV evening news.  And the assistants in any pharmacy are as smart and carefully made up as the immaculately turned-out women who make me feel so inadequate as I pass the beauty counters in British department stores.  Neither of these groups represents the norm.

Calling into the electricity board recently we were greeted by a man whose T shirt indicated he might recently have been gardening.  Bank workers grab any old top and jeans before going into work.   The teacher who came with her class to the library the other day even had ripped jeans.  And of course her pupils were casually dressed too.

So it’s not surprising that when my friends call and spot the school photos of my grandsons, smart and smiling in their royal blue sweatshirts with neatly fastened ties beneath, they assume the boys frequent some rather posh private seat of learning.  ‘Nah’, I reply.  ‘Only the local school down the road’.  Opinions are divided then.  Some wish fervently that French children had to wear uniforms, to prevent the dreaded ‘designer-trainer syndrome’.  Others are aghast at the dreadful deprivation of liberty that forcing the children to dress alike represents.

I’m not bothered either way.  But it’s one of the things that we notice as we share our time between England and France.  Vive la difference!

Uniform, but not as we know it. Grandson Ben's football socks may take a little growing into

* Mufti, refers to ordinary clothing, especially when worn by one who normally wears, or has long worn, a military or other uniform.