vines and such

Every morning, as we walk down to the village, we pass the robust little vineyard to the side of the road. It's well tended this year. The weeds are under control.


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Today we encounter someone working the rows. He's protecting the vines (with an application of sulfur and copper) against powdery mildew and other fungi -- a real problem in warm moist environments. If ever there was a year to worry about excessive moisture in France! Vouvrey vineyards destroyed last week by hail. Insufficient sun in the Loire valley, floods elsewhere, constant rain. Here, in the south, the rains haven't been excessive, but the moisture level remains high.

I ask the vine caretaker what caused the damage to some of the vines toward the front: entire branches have been torn off and I cannot imagine what wild beast could have attacked his crop so viciously.
Leh-vahnn -- he tells me. He points to the mountains, to Spain -- leh-vahnn.
I'm spinning this in my head for a minute. What animal is that?? Wait, wait, I'm in the south: let's make an adjustment for the nasal accent here: oh, of course -- le vent -- the wind!
Yes, yes, leh-vahnn, it blows viciously and snaps the fragile young branches. 

Right now, we can just see the emergent grapes. Last year, they were well formed by now.






When we return from our morning at the cafe, he is still there, working.


 


So I have more questions. Like -- what is the low electrical fence for? What wild animal would be deterred by it?
Sanglier! He says, with conviction. From the mountains -- le sanglier! I confirm this on my computer at home. Wild boar! Yes, I know about wild boar!


Our morning pause at the cafe is now one of the last ones and I have to say, it feels different already. There are more people stopping by today. The vacation months are slowly descending on the south of France and it's already causing a stir. The sleepiness of the square is morphing into something more lively, maybe even exciting.





Me, I take in the usual: those who pause and have a conversation with their neighbor. The little French and Catalan flags, the linden tree.






Of all things in Sorede, this is what I remember most when I'm not here -- the morning gaze out at the world from a table at the cafe bar, at our breads first, then, with some curiosity, toward other patrons, toward the square.






Eventually we leave, this time passing the local school. A group of kids is returning from an excursion. I see they came equipped with an essential snack!






It's another not great swimming weather day. And maybe that's good. Maybe we have done our bit by the sea. Maybe this year our eyes are meant to trace the contours of the mountains, different each day as the clouds come and go.





As we follow the road back to our Sorede home, we pass, as always, the figure of Christ. It was spiffed up just four years ago -- an interesting act of respect. This older woman crosses herself every time she passes by it. But you wont find any younger person doing the same. In fact, church attendance in France is at an all time low (and I should note it's even lower in a handful of other European countries): fewer than 10% report attending services and at least 60% report never going to church, for any reason. (In the US -- 25% report never going to church and, at least according to some fairly typical recent polls, between 40 and 60% report attending services anywhere from once weekly to several times a year. In Poland, church attendance is even higher -- topping 60%.)






Still, you could hardly say that old rituals and traditions have gone by the wayside in France, leaving these villages without spirit and without celebration. We'll be leaving, for example, just before the annual June 23 Saint John's hoopla -- announced in every store window in town (Sant Joan in Catalan). Here it is, in the window of the Ciboulette.





We'd witnessed the festivities in years past -- lighted torches carried from the sanctuary at the top of a mountain, young, old, dancing the traditional Sardana -- these celebrations draw nearly every resident in the village. Year after year, the same set of rituals, repeated in much the same way.

Funny how that works.

Lunch. I'm really trying to clean out the fridge now. Such a finality in that act! This is it -- the last carrot, the last few olives! Slabs of cheese!






Late afternoon. The skies continue to be uncertain (this is the worst that it gets in the region of nearly perpetual sunshine -- we are having an unusually high dose of uncertainty).

I suggest that we go to the next village just west of us -- Laroque-des-Alberes -- and hike from it using only the iPhone's GPS. We had failed with it on the mountain last week -- let's learn it already so that when we hike with it next week (not in France), we'll have it as a backup device, to help us when we get (inevitably) lost.

So we do just that: we go to Laroque, park the car, right by the bakery and therefore we actually start with buing sweet treats for the next two days: macarons and biscuits.


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And then we set out.
Where to? Ed asks.
I look up at the hills and peeks. Get us to that village there, the one perched halfway up that mountain!
And he does just that! And it is a beautiful walk.

Through the tight streets and alleys of Larocque (and forgive me here because it really is a pretty little village, but I do love Sorede best, so I can't swoon as much).



Laroque-des-Alberes


On a detour toward the old mill...






Then, leaving the village, past garden plots with terrific beds of veggies, fruits, flowers.















And up the hills some more, passing the Almond House (where they harvest almonds and produce fantastic almond oils -- for the stomach, for the skin).











We keep walking: up and west. It's quiet here, in these forested hills. So quiet that, as we walk along, I almost miss spotting him -- the stealthy fox.





We stare at him, he stares at us -- all in frozen silence -- and then he darts, quickly, quietly. Gone.

Ed and I climb higher -- for the views and because we know that this is the last good Pyrenee hike we'll have for a long while.



(my love for the great Roussillon plane knows no bounds. Especially, but not only, at dusk...)


And then we climb down again.






Back in Laroque, we pause at a cafe. Ed's thinking beer, I'm thinking a glass of wine and both go so well with the local oysters -- harvested just north of La Franqui beach. 





But that's just a snack. Our real supper is at the square again -- pizza at the cafe bar. A vegetarian one, with fresh artichoke hearts.





...So that I can wistfully think about the day we'll be back, maybe cooking up artichokes then and climbing bigger mountains and spending more time in the sea... Maybe then, maybe, maybe... sigh...

what when where

To be recognized as a regular, as one of the steadies, you need to persist. Come in daily and, maybe after a year, your absence (say if you take a week's vacation) will be noted. Your return will be greeted with kisses, your drink will be waiting for you.

We're not even close (at the Cafe Bar on the upper square). Skip a day and when we come back, our typically on top of things waitress places two coffees on our table. Ed shakes his head.
Non? She asks, puzzled.
Non. He drinks Perrier, glacé.
Ah, oui! I have you confused with two other customers!

On the one hand it's good -- we don't stand out. (Meaning, we are not judged by the fact that we don't quite look like the rest, Ed's height being just one thing that sets us apart.)





But we are just one of many who pass through. We're seen as English (Americans don't typically hang in Sorede, not even for a meal), but without the pink skin. Strangers in a village that values familiarity.


A few photos for you from our morning walk to town and especially from the idle hour at the cafe bar:



La Ciboulette, the village grocer, draws a steady client stream




rare sight: two women, meeting over coffee. Note one has linden flowers tucked behind her ear.




the singing butcher stops for his morning cup.





the florist (in the black apron) is here as well .





this is the time when the first ideas for an Ocean post are born. I'm on my n'th pocket notebook -- this red one picked up yesterday at Figueres.




...as the clouds still mess with the mountains and the French and Catalan flags romp crazily in the gusts of wind -- all in the powerful scent of the linden tree.


We have three days left in Sorede and we need a strategy as to how to fit in our remaining meals. The tough decision is about what to do for our last supper here. It falls this year on June 21st -- France's Fete de la Musique. Both the upper level (our favorite!) and the lower level cafes have musical events scheduled for that evening. You have to really love loud music to commit to a meal by the makeshift stages in either place. And here's another consideration -- we have yet to eat a single meal in one of the two good restaurants in Sorede. I'm sure you're shaking your head in wonderment -- two weeks in France and not once have we actually gone to a restaurant (pizza places and cafe bars don't count). So when will we splurge and really sit down at a place that actually has a chef and a menu and all the other things you come to expect in this country of great bistros, braserries and restaurants?

There are easier decisions to be made as well. Swimming, for example. The winds are still gusty, even in the village. It's warm, lovely, still partly cloudy -- summer-ish and pleasant. But it's not swimming weather. The sea will remain choppy. Our water play days are significantly fewer than in years past.

What does reliably repeat itself (Ed, stifle the yawn!) is the delightful excursion to Perpignan -- the capital of the Pyrenees-Orientales Department of southern France (France has 96 departments -- five, including Pyrenees-Orientales, belong to the region of Languedoc-Roussillon).


And so we finish our protracted breakfast, stop by the studio of the artist Muriel Warlaumont (had I the space, I would have snatched this painting from her as well)...





...chat for a few minutes, then proceed up the hill, past this gentleman whom we see at least once a day, always with a walking stick, always with his dog...





...rest, eat a very simple lunch (with a slab of brioche, because it looked so good in the bakery!)











...and proceed to the little train station just eight kilometers from here (at Argelès-sur-Mer), from where we catch the little train for Perpignan. (Ah. Another photographer with the same idea.)





On the train, playing:






There seems to have been a cloudburst in Perpignan just before we pull in. I'm impressed with how much we are managing to avoid the rains that are on and off passing through the Languedoc. The air is warm, the skies now show more blue than gray.










I have sort of a mission for this afternoon: wouldn't it be splendid to pick up a summer frock for a wedding I'm to attend next year at this time? Wouldn't that be a fun shopping experience? Wouldn't it?

Ed is graciously going along. I lead him to France's largest department store -- Les Galleries Lafayette. Sort of like Macy's, only French. Ed finds a corner of a bench and promptly falls asleep. I try things (these three things) on.





And I am quickly reminded how much I actually dislike shopping. How I start with a burst of optimism and end with despair. How I hate the way things fit. How my images never fit the reality out there and how I know that I make purchases of this nature so rarely that I should give it lots of thought and yet, after trying on just three things, I want to leave. I jostle the sleeping American and we move on.

We walk through the old town -- I'm rather despondent about the whole shopping experience (and therefore about the visit to Perpignan). Ed doesn't help by reminded me that we've been to this square, on this street, to this cafe... I want to bribe him with an ice cream cone to quiet him down already -- much like an adult wants to plug the kid with food, sweets, anything, just to get him to stop.





We pass a small shop and Ed recognizes it as the place where I once bought a light summer shirt -- excuse, me -- I remind him -- you actually bought it for me.
I did?
You did.
He sits down, quiet now, as I pick a dress or two off the rack.






One of them fits well enough and I wonder if I dare go to a wedding in such an informal dress -- one that I could equally wear for a trip to the farmers market.






The shopping part ends now and we really have only one more errand to do here - pick out a box of chocolates (Perpignan has absolutely exquisite chocolatiers) for our wonderful Sorede hosts. We do it quickly -- it's all a blur...






...as we rush now, because neither of us wants to stay longer. There is a train to catch...





...and we catch it brilliantly, confidently, because -- well, we know how to do it -- we've done it before.

It's a short ride -- just 16 minutes for us. Ed picks a seat in an almost empty car. Most of the passengers on this long distance train got off at Perpignan.
Here? he asks.
I give him one of those stares that says - no no no! ...look: there's a devilish kid banging the table every two seconds! Anywhere BUT here!
I guess I'm not subtle enough because the mom of the rambunctious boy catches my glance.
I'm sorry -- she says in accented English -- but we've been traveling for eight hours and I have given up trying to keep him quiet.
Are you coming down from Paris? -- I ask. I can't think what other destination is that far away.
No, Bern Switzerland. We're going to visit his grandmother down near Banyuls.



 



I can tell she is starved for adult conversation -- we cover a lot of ground in the quarter hour ride.
It's only a vacation for us. Sort of a prevacation. After, we'll go as a family -- to Hungary and Romania. We're thinking maybe in a camper. He can run around outside -- it may be easier on us! She smiles. And segues right into the same old topic that I last heard in Spain and that I am likely to hear again before this trip is over: so, I hear in the United States, you only have two week vacations? How do you do it? How do mothers raise children? How can they work?

She is really curious about this -- as if something doesn't quite fit.
And all I can do is admit that on the subject of family life, of parental leave, of childcare, back home, something doesn't quite fit.
I'm a teacher... He was self employed... The rest? I shrug. It is what it is.


Ed and I walk down to supper on the square at a late hour. It's our moulles frites night at the cafe bar. We hadn't had many nights out on the square this year and so it still feels extraordinarily special to be doing this now.

The waiters on the evening shift are superb. They always are this way -- we remember them well from previous years when we watched them dance around tables, laugh, banter, do whatever was called for to make it a good evening. For themselves, as much as for the customers.





Tonight, they have the last laugh. I can't finish the fries on an order of moulles frites and Ed is eager to take the remains of my meal home with us. There really is no good way to explain to a Frenchman why you should be wanting the left over cold fries, packed to go.
I try: for his midnight snack! 
Alors, alors, bon appetit! They chortle and laugh and it's as if nothing this funny had happened to them the whole day long.

How can you be this happy in your work?

I think about this as we walk up the hill to our home here. The moon peeks out now and then, the clouds grow dense, then slight again. Good night, good night, dream of good things, sleep well tonight...

town and country

Did you notice that the only thing that separates him from us is a thin wire? -- Ed comments as I make little noises to get the bull to look my way.





If he charges, I can climb a tree!
He laughs at that. You can? I suppose with enough adrenaline...

We are taking an evening walk. We pick one road, then another, always choosing the one that's closest to the mountain. Eventually it'll turn into a dirt road and I suppose if you kept on walking in this way, you'd get to the next village and the next -- all the way to the sea. Or to the ocean, if you head west.

We're surrounded by cork oak. It's always disconcerting to see the bottom of the tree stripped of bark -- as if someone ripped the pants off of a grown man and now he can't find a replacement pair, at the same time that the rest of his torso remains clothed in a shirt and jacket.






Still, I love the forest walk. These hill towns are beautifully rural -- you forget about that as you zip by car from village to sea, to next village, or store, or town. Tonight, we leave the car behind.






It is especially gratifying to take to the rural road after spending the better part of the day in Figueres.

Earlier, I had asked our hosts -- why don't we ever see you at the market here? I know they are both great cooks and yet I've never bumped into them at the Sorede food stalls.
We go to Figueres -- they have a large market there on Tuesdays.

Figueres -- that's in Spain. Forget that.

Or maybe we shouldn't forget it? I check on Google. Only a forty-five minute drive. And, beside the market, Figueres is home to THE Dali Museum -- one he designed himself. Meaning, it's going to be funky crazy interesting.

Some years back, we went through Dali's home on the coast. That was memorable. But we've driven past Figueres and never stopped. To go to a town for a museum, even THE most famous Dali museum, or perhaps especially because it has a VERY FAMOUS museum -- that's just not how we proceed.

Still, a market and a Spanish (well actually Catalan, but let's not quibble) town and such a short drive... We'll do it!

It's terrifically good coincidence that the day is rather gray. Clouds are moving between the mountains and the  plain. You get so used to sunshine here that when it disappears for a day or two, you feel really unsettled and out of kilter.






And so we set out. It's strange to be heading to Spain -- as if we were leaving Sorede -- good bye! See you next time!  -- those are my associations with driving south. Still, it's a short sprint and Figueres is not a big town (population c. 45,000) and our hosts have given us plenty of tips on how to enter, where to park, even where to have our morning coffee. Here:






People watching in Figueres is an entirely different game than, say, in Sorede. Figueres feels Spanish. Figueres feels urban, or at least connected to the urban world. [Notably, you can now actually take the high speed train all the way to Paris, with only one change. Five and a half hours and you're before the Eiffel Tower. It makes Figueres feel like it's one of the important places in Europe. Which, for art lovers, it is.]






Okay, a nice long linger at the cafe. I can tell that Ed is tickled about being in Spain again. It's always more fun having a common language with the people in the place you're visiting and in France, he's often out of luck, relying on my translations rather than on his own skills. Here, he is understood.






Now the market. It's big. It's repetitive. There are many stalls with similar produce. So that if you're looking for oranges (on our list), you go from one, to the next, to the next, until you settle on your preferred fruits (cheapest, if you're with Ed).






It is supremely interesting to walk through it, though I see it more as a functional market (rather than, say, Ceret's, which is also visually stunning).







After a thorough inspection, we're ready for the museum.

What's this? A line?

Ed -- let's skip it.
We've come all this way and we're going to skip it?
We came for the town and the market.
But it may be funky cool inside.
A bunch of paintings...

Typically, we can talk ourselves out of most any museum with a long line, but somehow this one intrigues me enough that I push for staying.




the craziness starts before you even go in. If you find yourself torn as to what in this is consequential, just focus on the statue (upper left) with a baguette on her head. What, need a close up? Okay, there are many...








In the end, was the long wait worth it? Ed says later -- I was thinking while standing in line that Dali himself would have never done this. He would have gone on to do something more interesting. Yes, but was it worth it? You decide:



why do only women want to have their photo taken by the Cadillac?





school group, pondering.





the paintings, the visitors.





Dali said the viewers are integral to the art. Indeed.





ceiling fresco





this one you have to look at through a green screen. Recognize any of the characters?





this is a tapestry of the image that, to my knowledge, sits in MoMA in NY. Ed used the occasion to explain to me Einstein's theories on time and light (shamefully, my high school science knowledge of either had... faded). I liked reading later that Dali, when asked if he was reflecting on Einstein when creating this piece of art, answered -- no, I was merely thinking of a Camembert cheese melting in the sun.





to understand the beauty of this, you really have to stand there and use both eyes to see the entirety; but I thought I'd tease you a bit with the possibilities.



I'll say this -- when you hit a crowded room, you just wanted to get out already. And I can give you a heads up which nationalities were especially pushy today (those way to the north and to the east). And I can also tell you that not every room was crowded (I don't understand that, as you sort of follow a room progression) and not everyone was pushy.


As we were leaving, I speculated if it would be better to spread one artist's work around the globe. I mean, it's not as if there is a choice: Dali wanted a concentration and a stylized presentation. This is NOT a boring just plain old canvas on a wall type of place. Still, as we glossed over some twenty paintings with a stone theme to them, I wondered how much more attention they would get if each one were delivered to a town that otherwise could boast no Dali at all.

Another way of putting it is that you surely have your fill of Dali by the time you leave Figueres.







As we drive into the hill towns of the French side of the Pyrenees, I have that same feeling of delight -- of coming home to a quiet world of sleepy villages with debates raging about such inconsequentials as which bakery should produce today's lunch bread. The cool BEST bread bakery won today and as we pull in, I notice that the lunch menu has entrecote frites and moulles gratinee on it. Well now -- it's been many many months since I've eaten beef. I suddenly feel that once in a blue moon craving for steak with home made fries. If they would still serve lunch (it's already 3), we are ready to eat it (give Ed some mussels and good bread with them and the guy's content).











So again we flip our meals and again we are left with bread and cheese for supper.





And again we have no complaints. None whatsoever.