calm waters

Home is good. Home is best. Home feels safe.

But Sorede, where I am these weeks, offers me its own unmatchable kind of safety. Here, I'm without issues -- the petty, the profound -- all subdued, stashed away somewhere, I don't know where - temporarily missing. I imagine this is what being on drugs is like: your spinning mind goes blank, the senses take over. Except Sorede isn't a pharmaceutical high. Sorede is the real deal.

It's a wonderful thing to have every once in a while -- this empty mind. The day unfolds, impressions set in -- tentative sketches on a blank canvas, filled in very, very slowly. Everything moves like on the gentle cycle on your washing machine.

You'd think that the computer -- my connection to real life -- would keep every worry front and center for me. Right now, at the table at the cafe bar where we're enjoying breakfast, I should worry. But it doesn't do that. I plug into my world back home and I think  -- it is what it is. I sleep soundly despite all life's imperfections.


In addition, the weather today is so glorious, so sunny, breezy and warm that it's not possible to imagine a more perfect union of the elements -- perfect for a beach outing that is. And so it's time to make the drive to La Franqui.

La Franqui is a small hamlet some miles up the coast. Smaller even than Le Racou. I don't imagine anyone actually lives at La Franqui except maybe the few who operate cafe bars or the like. Because it's squeezed behind a cliff and because it has a large inlet running north of it, when there, you feel like the world has disappeared. We have before us a few buildings, and the very wide and very long strip of sand, and the water -- the sea to the east, the inlet to the west and beyond that -- the Corbieres -- those old hills that mark the northern border of the great Roussillon plain.

La Franqui at this time of the year is virtually empty. You could swim naked and no one would be able to tell. But here's what I love most about the place -- unlike at le Racou, the sea here is shallow -- waist deep for a very very long stretch. And so whereas at le Racou I swim, at la Franqui, I play.

For all these reasons, it is and always will be my very favorite beach in the world.

But it's not close by. And so we'll go there maybe two times in the course of our two week stay here in the south of France.

In studying the weather maps, I knew for days already that Wednesday would be la Franqui day.



Still, there is no hurry in the morning. We're never willing to linger more than at most three hours on any beach, no matter how perfect it is. So we move slowly through the day -- to our local bakery for pain au chocolat, to the cafe bar on the main square for a long pause: cafe creme, the pains, a book to read...






And even after breakfast we do not rush. First, a stop at the cool bakery for the bread. And to admire the pastries. For future purchase?





And since we are so close to it, I suggest we go the Carrefour to pick up extra sunscreen. The stuff from home is a tad old and you cannot have enough of protection on a day like this. And I suggest, too, that we buy a beach umbrella.

You're kidding -- Ed shakes his head in disbelief. Spending money on things is truly something he rarely does and never with any great pleasure.
I'll buy it. It can't be more than 10 Euros. We'll leave it with our hosts. Maybe it'll be here when we come back in the future. And if not, we'll surely use it this time.

Neither of us likes to spend long hours out in the sun. I get plenty brown from being outdoors so much, I don't need more sun exposure and Ed positively dislikes being far from shade.

To Ed's surprise (and actually to mine as well), the Carrefour has plenty of beach umbrellas. We pick up a large one for 8 Euros -- one that does fancy tricks of bending this way and that. It is the smartest purchase we've made here and still, I think that it solidified in Ed the uneasy feeling that I think he carries in his pocket here -- that he has become a staid person. The type that lugs a beach umbrella and sunscreen and who splashes in the water some and then calls it a day. These kinds of images I'm sure send him dreaming about the day he will again sail from Maine to Cuba on his own (he did that some decades back). I have given him a taste of the tame life. That, more than old age causes him to squirm.




  a boy, fishing



looking for the perfect spot to settle in


But, as I said, the umbrella is indeed a godsend, even as the wind is brisk and we worry that it would break the stokes before we have a day's use.






It doesn't break. It holds steady as we spread under it's glorious awning and it continues to hold steady when we put out our picnic lunch...



 


... and it stays strong and steady as we take our plunges into the sea (Ed only once, me -- three separate plunges and for long stretches each time. Where else can I play without thought to the silliness of it all? For instance, ever try doing a cossack dance under water? Or a yoga downdog as the waves splash against your ankles?)





A La Franqui day ends for us with a quick ice cream and an espresso for me at a cafe. It's a way to sweeten the departure. And to not think about how rare playfulness enters into our lives in the everyday.





The drive home (about an hour away) is on local roads. Past sail boat lessons and apricot orchards...











... and cherries and vineyards too. We note a fruit farm-stand and we pull over. Are you closed?
Well yes, but you're here and I'm here and if you want something, we can go ahead and get it for you.






This is how we wind up with the best strawberries we can ever remember tasting (If anyone of you come across this variety in the States -- it's called 'Mara de bois' -- buy it, plant it, eat it! You will not be disappointed.) And quite excellent apricots. And killer cherries. And lemon cookies and a bottle of rose... Mmmm.


So home now. Sorede home. Ed is napping, I'm fixing supper. The usual beans (because they're so good here!), potatoes, a funky leaf salad, eggs. The sun is still going strong at 8:30 when we eat outside.





I'm sure when the bevy of issues hits me again back home, the real home across the ocean, I'll remember exactly this day. And doing downward dog poses at the edge of the sea.

the sea

Soredians would agree: today, summer swooped over the great Roussillian plain and took hold. I suppose they take it for granted that it will take hold. Me, I come from a place of violent weather extremes. Who knows what may come next. So I never assume. Except, this time, I am as sure as they all are -- there's no going back. We have entered a period of sunshine and warmth.

So why didn't the sea catch on?

Hold on, hold on, I'm getting ahead of myself. Morning --  let's deal with that first.

Well now, if it's Tuesday, it must be market day in Sorede. There's no debate as to the early day agenda: we head to town and eat whatever pain or croissant is still available because today isn't about the bread product, it's about the market!  I nudge Ed to wake up already. What? hum? The market!

We set out  for the village square (passing the usual, memorable, delightfully colorful, often times very ancient and with pets local folk).






Our habit is to go to the old bakery, pick up breakfast stuff, then settle in at the lower square cafe.


 


There, I watch the market unfold, while Ed reads a book. I can't get enough of people watching here, whereas Ed's a little less fired up about taking note of, for example, the family in pink move from one stall to the next.






Or of the line that forms at the meat and sausage booth.






Or -- my favorite -- the maman with the Catalan (yellow and red!) baby sling.






Eventually, I get up to shop. Produce for the week. It's always cheap (compared to shopping at a market back home), fun, different. Produce is mostly from France, but not only. Spain figures prominently at the market (melons, tomatoes, etc etc). So does Kenya if you want yourself an avocado.

We have a sackful of veggies. Time to head home.

 My, but it's warm today. Scrap the planned hike, it's beach weather!

But first there must be lunch. (Which means that we must drive down to the cool bakery to retrieve our BEST BAGUETTE EVER, but so what -- it is such a pretty little drive!)





Okay, we have our bread. Lunch now. On the terrace.





And after -- Ed must nap.

Ed, wake up!

Eventually, very very late in the afternoon, he's ready to go. It's a no brainer -- we're off to tiny Le Racou.

Le Racou... It's not the closest beach. Maybe 10 kilometers from our village. But it is our beach. Small but wide. Hidden. With a hamlet hugging the road behind. All that, but what really makes us go back again and again (and again) is that it's got terrific swimming options. The sands slope rather steeply toward the sea and such a quick drop off means that the waters are instantly deep, so that you can stay close to the shore and swim to your heart's content.

I must admit it, I get a little choked about being back here again.





But why is the water so cold????

Ah yes... it is the first good day of summer... It had been a cold spring. The sea hasn't caught on that it's time to welcome the summer people.

But I take the plunge. And I swim and Ed does too and then we sit on the sand, huddled next to each other, allowing the warmth of the sun to run its magic on us again.


And because it's just a touch too early for supper, we take a walk along the coast and that's a new one for us, so it just goes to show that no day is a copy of another and no return puts you exactly where you once were.



the coast, south of Le Racou




the gentle end of the Pyrenee chain




le Racou, from up above




Ocean author, looking on


 We finish off the evening at the local oven baked pizza place. I include this photo of Ed because I think right now, his hair and beard length are at their most becoming. By the end of the trip, he'll again become the shaggy guy I met and grew to love almost eight years ago in Madison.





(My seafood pizza, by the way, cannot be improved upon.)

.




And after, Ed drives home and I lean back and put my feet on the dashboard and hum along to the music on the radio.

the hills, the sun, the clouds...

Is it more important that we are at the foot of the Pyrenees, or that we are just six kilometers from the sea? If you tracked the last three days, it surely would appear that the mountains win. We haven't even come close to dipping a toe into the calm waters of the Mediterranean.

But I think that it would be an incorrect inference. I count the hours until we can throw down a towel and plunge into the sea! But that day has to be perfect. The air has to be warm to compensate for the early season. There must be sunshine, because the color of the sea is at its best then.

The mountains demand less. In fact, the first climb we always do is not really up a mountain -- more like a foothill to the mountains: it's right behind where we live. We walk to it from the door of our flat, round the bend then head up the trail (or, if we're feeling lazy, up the dirt road, which is longer but gentler). Total time to reach the sanctuary at its crest -- 1.5 hours. A baby climb. You don't need a promise of perfection up in the heavens.

Not that there wasn't perfection in the heavens today. There were scattered clouds, yes, but they added texture to the scenery. For example, on our walk down to breakfast, the neighbor's vineyard always looks best if it is flanked by a partly cloudy sky.







So, begin the day with the walk down. To the old bakery. Old loyalties die hard. This time, we're in time for their pains au chocolat. Which are great, especially when eaten outdoors at the main square, accompanied by a cafe creme.











Two themes come through this morning: first of all, Ed  with his cats -- predictable, but still, it needs to be acknowledged, because it really is a part of every walk into town...



last year's cat without a tail is back!




...as is his jealous cousin.



And the second theme? Older women running into friends on the way to buy groceries. Again, no morning walk can take place without encountering something like this:





And this:







Okay, our hike. There was a theme to that as well -- one that I would very much like to scratch out, but I cannot, because it's there and it's true: the theme of Ed saying -- yes, but we've been here before.

Ed resists the comfortable. The repetition. The boring, you might say. And I do too. Except for Sorede. I do not mind repetition in Sorede and I do not find it boring. And mostly, Ed is on board. But when he wants to pinch and poke at me -- which he'll do when I tell him how happy I am, he'll say (more than once)  -- yes, but we've seen this.

And perhaps Ocean readers would share his take on travel. For example, when I post a few photos from our walk -- ho hum. Chances are you've seen versions of them before.

And yet...

Back home, I have my favorite places from which to shoot standard photo fare. And each time that place will look different (in my eyes at least)! Like Monet's garden in Giverny, it can never be the same, because nature, light, flora, weather -- they are never the same. And so each glimpse is unique and uniquely beautiful.

So side with me on this one. I mean, do you even remember that I may have posted a version of this beautiful view of a misted mountain range (as seen from our hike up the mountain)?







And are you sure you remember how grand the Roussillon plain is? That vast expanse of land that stretches from the Pyrenees toward the Corbieres? Of course you don't! Here it is, as viewed from the foothills and mountains that rise up behind Sorede:






It's (in my view) a vast and beautiful landscape, reaching all the way to the sea.






On our hike up, the flowers, too, are different this year.





A wetter, cooler spring shuffled the usual and produced something new.





At the crest, we rest for a few minutes...





...then head back. And the views are different yet again. Each time even more impressive, more awe inspiring.






So this was our first bigger walk. Lunch is late. It has to be. Our hike, short as it was, dug right into the midday meal.






And the next big event for the day will be the dinner  -- at the cafe bar again. Moulles and frites.





And I suppose if I had to throw out yet one more theme for the day -- I would call it the physicality of men, but, I haven't photos to support it and so let me just say that if you were passing through, you'd spot this in a heartbeat. The greetings between men -- the kisses, the clasp on the shoulder, the slap on the back. It's so common here that I'm sure no one even notices. Except I notice. Sitting here at the cafe, I notice. Affection is not a four letter word -- how cool is that!





Evening on the square. We finish our mussels, salads, we take out books to read. I glance up toward the buildings that line the square. They're shuttered now. For the night. The breeze picks up, the flags -- French, Catalan, European Union -- flap and wave, back and forth.

It is a good moment.

for the love of the loaf

 If you don't care to read about lofty loaf decisions -- move on! This post is not for you!

As expected, today, the rains continued. Good, good, get them out of the way early, because once you get used to the lovely stuff -- the clear skies, the warm sun -- it's hard to go back to a gray world.

Besides, give me, for once, a chance to sleep in (I haven't done that since....probably January)!

Well now, sleeping in is fine, but I'm remembering the trouble with doing that while in Sorede -- the disappearing pain au chocolat! The local bakery runs out of it! Mon dieu!

And then a second thought crosses my groggy morning mind -- wait now, do we really want to pick up pain au chocolat at the old bakery in town? And not go to the cool bakery we discovered last year on the outskirts -- the one with the best baguettes IN THE WORLD?

And if we are to pick up pain au chocolat in town and eat them outside, at the cafe, then aren't we risking the disappearance of the best baguette?  Because, what if (oh no!), what if the best bakery in the world RUNS OUT? It's Sunday: the grocers, the bakers - they'll be open in the morning because everyone is still shopping for the big family meal, but everything closes after noon. That love of shopping that we have on Sundays? It never caught on in Europe. So what if we are left (oh no, oh no ,oh no...) without bread?

So I'm now wide awake thinking about strategy. Walk down for pain au chocolat in the old bakery, return for the car and drive for bread. No. What if there is no more pain or - God forbid, no more baguette, because we waited too long? Drive, period, to be safe? But we love the walk! My mind is spinning.

Ed, wake up, we have a decision to make!

In the end, when we head out, it is so late (10:30) that there's no choice but to drive to town. Predictably, the old bakery is out of pain au chocolat, out of Napoleons too, pretty much out of everything but the baguette (which we do not want from them). Still, it's nice to pop in there. To at least ask. To see that the vendor's son has grown a bit since last year.






[So long as we're in the area, we make a quick detour to the meat shop, where we do not buy meat, but we do pick up some local anchovies...






On our way there, I drool over a parked car -- the one I wish we had rented...]






It is terrific to arrive guilt-free (we tried the local old bakery, we tried!) at the Fournil des Alberes.  A quick spin through the beloved countryside...





...and we're there: at the shop of the best breadmaker of all time. (I see that he has just received a gold medal this year -- the Mercure d'Or -- one of only 24 small businesses in France to do so -- for his entrepreneurial accomplishments here, just three miles from my most precious village of Sorede.)


Outside, in the parking lot, a family is selling their homegrown apricots and cherries. Superb idea. They're riding on the coattails of a successful bakery and why shouldn't it be so? One success breeds another. Yes, that's the way to move forward!










We buy their fruits as well. This is apricot season in the Languedoc region of France. And since this year everything is just a tad later than last year, we still get the local cherries, carefully selected and picked over, so that your little container wont disappoint you.

Inside the bakery, the energy level is high. Three people are serving the never diminishing line of customers and I see that Emmanuel Castro, the owner, isn't beneath providing assistance on a Sunday morning - he's right there with them, filling sack after sack of the ever wonderful baguette, packing up single pasteries, counting out change, throwing out a happy greeting to everyone who comes along. It strikes me that no one who walks away with a warm baguette looks grumpy.






It's worth waiting for, no matter how old you are.






The line moves quickly -- two minutes and you're out.

But not us. We linger in their cafe over our pain au chocolat (in the photo below there is also the Napolean pastry wrapped up for later)...


 


...and I watch the stream of humanity walk through and get their one, two, three, sometimes more loaves of baguette. Why do they need all those breads ? - I ask Ed... He reminds me - restauranteurs come here too. They walk away with sacks of the stuff.






We walk away with just one. Kings we are, slated to have a lunch with the best bread ON THE PLANET!

Once home (let's call Sorede home for the next two weeks, okay? I'd like that...), we do decide to take a short walk. You're not going to see it through photos -- it was more of a functional stroll - to the village and back, but it was a good walk. A calm walk. And Ed did reconnect with the cat who once loved him (today the feline fiend was just mildly interested).





(Further attempts to head out for walks were foiled by the return of rain clouds.)

Lunch. On the terrace. It did not rain, but even if it had rained - there is a roof over the table and we would have stayed, just because this is where we eat lunch. Bread, cheese, tomato, fruit. And if we're lucky -- as we are today, the Mille Feuille (aka Napoleon). And a meringue with pine nuts for me.






Nap, write, read, nap, write, read. In this way we come toward the dinner hour. At home. A mock (or maybe real?) Nicoise salad -- potatoes, beans, tomatoes, eggs, local anchovies. And endive because it's cheap, it's here and I love it.





And another failed attempt at a walk. Another retreat. You could say that the weather isn't the best, but looking back on this day, I can't say that I have a single complaint. Not one.