Thursday 21 August 2014

Notre Sejour en France

So, yes, sorry, I've been away.




It was lovely. 

For so many years, we've either split our holiday into 2, week long slots, at least some of it on scout camps, and at the end of our time away I've always had a compelling urge to stay away, to turn around and head off elsewhere. I think that the sign of a truly great holiday must be that you feel ready to come home - in a good way: relaxed, replete, and not even 12 hours on the French autoroutes (including the traffic jams around Paris) ruins it.

A campsite nestled in the foothills of the French Pyrenees - close enough to the coast for a day at the beach, but strangely (or perhaps not so strangely as we now have easy access to the sea in our day to day lives) we spent most of our time in the mountains, following rivers either up or down stream, marvelling at waterfalls, swimming in icy cold natural swimming pools of melt water, leaping off rocks into rivers, squeezing through gorges...

We ate, as you'd expect, some great French food. Significant numbers of croissants, pains au chocolat, baguettes, rillettes, fromage, crepes... luscious peaches and apricots from roadside stalls, absolutely ripe, and with not a hint of refrigerated transport about them ...



Thanks to my French friends who live in the area, we also had a couple of delicious, utterly authentic meals. 

On our second night, a family BBQ with Sonia, Laurent, their son, Sonia's parents, sisters, sisters' husbands and kids... It featured a delicious courgette soup (am hoping to get the recipe, all of you who are struggling in the annual "what shall we do with all these courgettes" conundrum) merguez and saucisse, salads, and of course a couple of delicious tartes of the type you only find in France. There are no pics of this gorgeous evening: we were too busy eating, drinking delicious wine from the local vineyards - wine that will never make it to these shores because the locals keep it for themselves! and sharing news in a wierd mixture of Fr-english and We-nch as the non-French (the Husband, Blue & Pink), non-English (my French friend's father, one of her brothers in law etc) and non-Welsh speakers (everyone apart from Blue & Pink) in the company  all tried to make themselves understood...

We also had a wonderful meal with them at a restaurant in Tautavel (home of the oldest European man), 'le Petit Gris', a Catalan restaurant with a menu full of the fish and meat of the region. If you're in the area, I'd really recommend looking it out. Squid, rabbit, mussels, snails all featured heavily, as did goats cheese. It was all utterly delicious, eating on a covered terrace as the sun went down. Again, not many pics of the food, although I did sneak a couple of snaps of my dessert - fresh goats cheese topped with roasted almonds and local honey. Just divine...




And so now we're back home, the scent of Autumn replacing those of wild fennel and the baking Roussillon terre. One of the best holidays we've had.


Hope you've had a good summer too.

11 comments:

  1. That goats cheese looks amazing! So glad you had a good break! I honestly could never live in France. I would be mahoosive after a few months thanks to their amazing food! :D

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    1. :-) oh me too - I'd be massive. Am now on a mission to eat a little less indulgently...

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  2. I'm not envious at all. I'm also a liar. I love that area of France, although I'm often confused by the local accent. The mountains or the coast? Difficult choice. I'm currently groaning under the weight of excess courgettes so any good recipes are welcome. I'm disappointed to find that I'm not the oldest European man, though - I just feel like it.

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    1. Ah, Phil, I learnt alot of my French in this area (French exchange and also lived in Perpignan for a year) so I'm quite used to the accent. I LOVE this area and it was such a joy to spend 2 weeks there again. We spent a good day on the beach at Argeles, but going back to Coolioure was a definite low point - I've only ever been in the Winter/Spring, and going when it was crammed full of tourists was awful... Am pestering my friend for her courgette soup recipe - it really was delicious!

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  3. Looks like you had a great time. We're just back from France too but it'll be a while before I catch up with myself and get some posts together about it. Cheers from Carole's CHatter

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    1. Carole, we had a wonderful time - hope you enjoyed your trip too

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  4. What a fabulous holiday, in a beautiful part of France.
    We always avoid the motorway round Paris and head south via Boulogne and Rouen. Then we avoid the chaos in Rouen (bridge and tunnel closed) by making a detour via a little town called Yvetot.
    It looks further on the map but can save a lot of time and aggravation. It takes six hours to get to our little house in the Loire using that route but it took our friends ten hours when they came via Paris at the wrong time of day!

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    1. :-) for various complicated reasons we could only cross Dover/Calais this time, and we'd definitely avoid Paris next time - this is the first time we've gone so far south with the kids, but even with 'les bouchons' it wasn't as bad as we'd feared and the holiday was so worth it! We'll definitely go back.

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  5. Sounds a wonderful break. Elinor x

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