longest

For me, this day is special. I love daylight, sunlight, brightness inside and out. And so of course, I’m going to be very fond of a day that has the greatest number of minutes when the sun is shining down on us. And here, in Sorède, it most certainly is shining down on us. June 20^th promises to be full of blue skies and light breezes.

A day for La Franqui beach.

La Franqui is the farthest of our favorites, but it is also the best (in my view) and this will be our second and last trip to it.

But first, the walk down for breakfast, past Ed’s best cat pal (one of only two that willingly indulges a long petting session)...

...past the usual groups, with dogs, with baguettes, with shopping bags – often all three...

...past cyclists, 'sportif' or otherwise...

 ...to the bakery. Hello once favorite and still beloved village bakery! We’ll have two pains au chocolat and the baguette. There, loyalty trumps! (Sort of.)

Ed has taken to drinking a small beer for breakfast. Many here do and I can see the attraction – it’s cheaper than water, more thirst quenching than a hot chocolate. I stick with café crème.

We walk back up, Ed pets cat, the usual routine (as the woman, who most every day, every hour it seems, watches the comings and goings -- including of this odd tall man who takes the time to scratch the cheeks of the old black and white cat)...

So we are home. But now we mess with the details a bit. We want to drive to some of the coastal towns and see if there are boats for rent. We’ll take lunch with us – to eat on the beach afterwards. And since we’re driving past Le Furneil bakery, we may as well pick up (what we actually reserved for today) one of their very interesting chocolate baguettes. It is La Petrie (our favorite) au chocolat (with this interesting twist.)

Okay, baguette’s in the car, along with packed cheeses, tomato, fruits, waters. Off we go.

It’s a winding (and therefore long-ish) drive and it doesn’t help that Ed, equipped with a detailed map, chooses the really back roads.  Indeed, I would, in some places, not even call these brittle ribbons of dirt and patches of something or other 'roads." The clunker is unhappy, but we forge on. Even when there aren't bridges over rivers and a set of (wild?) peacocks stands in our path.

Yes! Made it across the river. Ducks, startled, swim away from the red clunker.

I admit that it’s an interesting swing through the Roussillon landscape. Orchard after orchard of apricots, peaches, kiwi, nectarines...

With all forms of pickers now -- on elevated platforms...





... on ladders, reaching for the best of the ripened fruits.

And now finally we've reached the beach townships to the north. It quickly becomes apparent that the boat idea is a bust. In Brittany, every coastal town will have a sailing school with boat rentals. Here, if they have them, they’re well hidden.

Eh, no matter. The longest day had this long fruitless search, or fruit filled search, depending on your perspective, but in any case, I should also point out that there is almost no wind, so sailing would have been very theoretical, even had we located the boats.

Slight breeze, delightful sunshine – La Franqui, you’re next!

Ah, lovely little village beach, extending, if you cross the inlet, forever and ever, or at least further than we’ve ever walked. (Here's the inlet, looking back toward La Franqui. Sometimes knee deep, sometimes waist deep. Where the river meets the sea.)

We pick a spot, empty, beautiful. Ed wants shade, I say let’s buy an umbrella next time. He winces at the word 'buy.' I concentrate on the words ‘next time,’ because when you’re this close to leaving, you have to speak in terms of next times. It's too sad otherwise.

We sit at the edge of the water, our backs to the sun, our lunch before us, the melting in the warmth cheeses, the oozing bits of chocolate and extremely delicious baguette, a few particles of sand here and there – all correct, perfect, and perfectly wonderful.

Ed wants to read a little now, but me - I can’t wait.

I’m the first one in this time because to me, the sea doesn’t ever get any better than this – shallow for a long stretch (we’re at the sand lip – our favorite place), warm, gentle.

I can’t tell how long I (and eventually Ed and I) played in the water. One hour? Two? Forever?

And that’s it. Goodbye sweet Franqui sands, with a view toward the etang, and the Corbiere hills beyond. (Or, as in the photo below, with a view from the other side of the etang toward the sea.) You are and will be, for me, the best.

The longest swim puts us into early evening. We leave the car at home and walk down, and even though it's just after 9, the sun is still throwing light on the village below.





And there's, too, a second cat moment, if that second cat with the squashed face (as Ed calls him) is out and about...






And then up we go, toward the main square (and looking out from here, the light is pure gold!)...

... but there is an 'oh dear' moment as the café bar is having kitchen issues and so they cannot serve food. We go to the next cheapest place – the grill (Auberge de Margaux) that some seem to like and we each time have the same reaction – not bad, not bad at all, not great either, a filler place because we're not willing to drive elsewhere. 

A grilled sea bream, a simple crème catalan...










... no complaints, no thoughts really, not this way or that, just an evening out, but not any evening, one when only after after ten does the sun stop throwing light on the street before us. Tomorrow, the countdown towards winter begins.

what if...

What if I lived a life of no pressing obligations? No stress? Wouldn’t that free me (or anyone) to do more? Deliberately rather than because I have to?

In other words, what if I retired? (The current plan is not to retire. I’m just scribbling thoughts from the day.)

Early in the morning, before the sun fully cracks through some distant horizon, Ed and I crank ‘what if’ numbers. By my own calculations I should work forever. But what if I didn’t?

 

We go back to sleep and wake up to the day much much later.

They said it would be cloudy and it is cloudy. We skip breakfast. It’s fun and a great value to sometimes eat the big meal on the square at noon. So rather than breakfast, we have the 10 Euro (tip, taxes included) special at the café: a huge Catalan salad..

...and mussels and fries.

And only after all that do I have my morning shot of caffeine.

I watch two workmen come and sit at a table not far from us. They order their lunch – burgers and fries. Ed comments – ah, here we are, two Americans eating French food and two Frenchmen eating American food! Though I point out that you’re not likely to order half a carafe of café with your lunch burger back home. And return to work after.

The plan is to make the annual obligatory trip to Perpignan – the former capital of Roussillon and Northern Catalonia, some 20 or thirty miles north of Sorède. To an American, that’s like a daily commute. A sneeze and you’re there. But we’ve learned the hard way that here, it’s a bit of a nightmare ride. If you take the highway, you have to get to that main road. Adds on miles. If you take the local road, it’s easy to get lost and especially once you enter the periphery of this once medieval town. With a quarter million people, it feels very urban. So driving is hard, parking is harder – the whole trip becomes rather unpleasant.

Unless you go by train.

It takes the clunker 11 minutes to go from our home in Sorède to the train station in Argeles sur Mer. There, parking is by the track, free, easy. We arrive, the train pulls in, perfectly on time. 17 minutes later we are in downtown Perpignan...

 

... with a lovely walk before us...

 

... taking us straight to the heart of this actually rather charming little city. (I began to view it as charming once we figured out that the train is there, available, fast, delightful.)

The current thinking among some is that we, in the States, are a car society. We don’t need trains. We want the freedom to stir up our engines and go as we please. I listen to all this blabber and I think – how short sighted this seems! As our dollars continue to subsidize car travel (to say nothing of airports), as we keep our gas prices low and focus on the myth of the inexpensive car ride, so many others have developed systems of train travel that are delightfully stress free.

(On the train, I take out the camera and snap a photo that marks almost our halfway mark of the trip on this side of the ocean. This is how we look after being in each other’s company round the clock!)

So, here we are in Perpignan. And right away I get distracted by its delightful little shops. 

 
 


Ed is there to keep me grounded.

You look great in the glasses you have. You don’t need new frames. 
But the styles are rounder now! Look at these! I show off a beautiful two toned pair.  
You look like my father in those. 
How about this pair? 
You look like my mother in those. 
You're just saying that. 
You wont be able to fit a lens into a European frame!  I know he’s making that up, but it’s enough to get me out of one shop. And into the next, where we repeat the entire conversation. With an addition. You may want to retire someday... 






We often talk about living below one’s means (an idea that he embraces with greater conviction than anyone I know). Most of the time, I’m on board. When I travel, it's tempting to stray. 

Look at this beautiful, simple, cotton dress! 
You look gorgeous in what you already have. 
Should I buy it for a daughter?

No. (Sorry daughters, no dress.)

We do find the shop I visited last year – a place where they sell stickers with the Catalan symbol, especially for cars. (It’s a donkey and if you really want to make a statement, it’ll be one with yellow and red stripes somewhere on it.) I had bought one small sticker last year and I could not decide which vehicle should take on the honor of sporting this symbol of my affection for the region. So now I buy two more. The red hot lover, Rosie and the mudroom – each will have its own little donkey.

We also visit a chocolatier. Perpignan has magnificent chocolate shops! I know, you can get great chocolates anywhere these days, but Perpignan sweets are really quite exquisite. And we are looking for a gift for our favorite landlords in Sorède and for a few souls back home. (Okay, the shopkeepers are magnificent to behold as well.)

I think Ed senses my wistfulness as I pass one eyeglass store after another because he offers to buy me an espresso at a uniquely tempting little café, with strong coffee aromas coming from inside.

He reaches for his book, I look around. There is always something that catches your eye if you look long enough. And this time, something catches my ear too. A demonstration just a few blocks away. A motorcade of cars, horns blaring, flags unfurled, smoke bombs thrown on the road. So far as I can tell, road workers union making a fuss for one reason or another.





I’m amused to watch one van come to a stop and a worker dash out to pick up two glasses of beer from a roadside vendor. There’s an oddity for you: it’s not illegal to have open alcoholic beverages in cars, even as the laws on drinking and driving in France are far stricter than ours back home.

And so our quick visit to the biggest French city we’ll see on this trip is over. Just a few minute wait at the station...





And we return to the quiet of Sorède. And as long as we’re driving now (from Argeles sur Mer to our home), we may as well stop by Le Fournil bakery. After all, it’s after six, our local bakery will be out of bread, right? Here, the baguettes are still streaming in! Hot from the oven!

Our dinner is the flip side of the eating order: it’s what we would normally have for lunch. Bread, cheeses, and a tomato cucumber endive salad, with an egg or two thrown in. With the leftovers of some very very wonderful pastries from two different bakeries. Not in competition with each other. No, not at all!

slow

We’re back to slow mode for today. And worse – even the tiny pressure of getting up and out to arrive at the bakery in time for pain au chocolat is off. The large Fournil bakery, described in the previous post, has pains and as long as the sun will be rising and the stars brightly shining, they will continue to have pains and so who cares if it’s late, very late in morning before we guide the clunker out onto the road.

You might say – ah, we betrayed our local friends for the better bread. No no, not yet. That decision comes tomorrow. Our local best bakery (I wince as I write the word ‘best’) is closed on Mondays and so there isn’t the loyalty question to confront just yet. Besides, we do have a list of three items to tick off this morning – all clustered, wouldn’t you know it, around the area of Le Fournil des Alberes.

So first – the most tedious of all – time to fill the clunker. We’d gone 720 kilometers and the tank is down to one quarter full. And here’s the awful admission one must make – that tanker actually gets terrific mileage. Ed did the math – we’ve been getting 48.39 miles to the gallon. He grunts now – that’s better than my Geo. Good news for us though. Gas here costs a tad over $7 per gallon. We watched the guy in front fill his Peugeot and come up with a 94 Euro ($117) gas bill.

Okay, so we have good mileage. I still would prefer to be driving something like this:

Supermarket next. The best cheese values (and selections!) are here. Three new cheeses to add for the week. You’ll see them on our lunch table later.

Finally, the bakery. Waiting in line, you get to stare at the cacophony of color and imaginative interpretations in the pastry selection.

I’m happy I have no decisions to make. Our two little raspberry macaroons are set aside, the baguette we want is hot, just made minutes ago, the...Ed interrupts – I think I want an apple chausson, throwing me into a tizzy of indecision. I recover my wits: il voudrait une chausson (he would like a chausson). ‘Un’ chausson, both a shopper and the clerk correct me. The stress of bakery choices have caused me to mix up my French articles.

 

We do miss on this day the habit of walking to the café. Indeed, it’s good to be in the village again (even if we are driving up), away from supermarkets, gas stations, bakeries that offer too many choices. Here, at the café on the square, you can look out and contemplate the mountain you scaled the previous day...

...and you can watch the couple at the table not too far – he sips his beer, she drinks her wine and does the crossword puzzle.

Lunch will be late. We can’t just slide into the next meal when we get home, can we?

Not too hard. Here it is, with the star player displayed prominently.

 

In the late afternoon we’re in the clunker again, heading to the town along the coast right south of Argeles sur Mer. If you’re into Fauvist art or best anchovies ever, you’ll have heard of it – Collioure.

The town is always swarming with visitors and so it’s neither easy to navigate nor especially fun to stroll through. It’s definitely pretty from afar...

...and there are some nice colors and sweet beach moments to admire (the town has a pebble beach and on a warm day, the clear water must tempt every little and big kid here)...

...and it inspires some to sketch, many to use their camera...

...but it’s not the kind of place Ed and I would return to again and again. Windmill and decent Museum of Modern Art notwithstanding.

We’re here because we saw an add for the Collioure sailing school. Ed wanted to look at thir boats. And we do and they’re tiny and so we know not to come back for the short sail he had been considering for later in the week.

Clouds are coming in now and the air, though not cool, is certainly not toasty. And still, just before 8, we’re back at Le Racou beach. Our drive home is so close that we can’t imagine not stopping for a late swim.

And it is indeed a swim. The seas are finally calm. Once I get used to the cooler water, I can swim, back and forth, next to the shore, thinking about nothing more important than what to do about supper.

Our final meal for the day is again at home – we have the girolles (chanterelle mushrooms) and so I pan fry them in the local olive oil, along with Roussillon baby potatoes. It’s a good accompaniment to scrambled eggs, with a tomato and endive salad at the side.