variety

The more you come back and the longer your stays, the more, over time, you begin to differentiate. Between the good, the better, the worse. Not all breads are fantastic, not all market vendors are superb. The couple selling fruits and veggies at the Tuesday market rocks. The produce at Friday's market (Sorede gets two market days each week), pretty to the eye, barely squeaks by in terms of flavors and varieties (in my view).





The cheeses on Fridays, however, are sublime and it helps that the most cheerful vendor of all markets anywhere is there to cut them for you.










The paella vendor (who actually has no paella today but wants to convince you that his Catalan fish is even better) is a bit full of himself and, as last year, he makes fun of my camera which causes me to walk away.





The cheese vendor and fish lady are friends.

The fresh goat cheese seller is impatient.

Men with dogs are as common at the market as women with dogs.






As to the outsiders -- some Brits speak French, some do not, even though you can tell they live here.

Some Soredians are comfortable with visitors, others view tourism as a dangerous threat to village life. I would say that Sorede hasn't quite figured out how to market itself (the tourist information office is staffed by women who haven't a clue as to what the good hikes are and in any case, the tourist office is closed on week-ends which speaks mountains -- of a different sort). But I don't think Sorede necessarily wants to market itself. It has one modest hotel - which looks like it maybe fills in July and August, but most certainly not in the remaining ten months of the year. I never see anyone going in or out. (This, in a lovely village just a handful of kilometers from the most perfect beaches on the Mediterranean.) Of course, in so many ways, I love Sorede's self-absorption -- it gives me a chance to observe village life from the point of view of people who live here. And to create my own lists of favorites. So that, for example, at today's market, we buy almost nothing at all. Just cheese and, out of necessity -- a few tomatoes.

(The Ciboulette -- our local grocery shop -- gets our business for the green beans, the mushrooms, the potatoes.)

And here's an unwavering positive: the cafe people, both at the lower and upper square cafes, are uniformly genial. Over the top pleasant.

And the woman who has her art studio in the alley between the two squares is decidedly lovely. Of course, she has to be.
I have a brother in Portland, she tells me. If I sell enough paintings this year, I will go and visit him.
Are you from Sorede? 
No, from Collioure. Well now, that says it all. There is not a town in southeast France that has more tourists passing through it than Collioure.  But there's too much action in Collioure. It was great growing up there, but I prefer now the quiet of Sorede. I'm with her on that.

I help her move closer to her goal of visiting her brother in Portland.






As for cats -- Ed likes all cats, but not all cats are satisfied with just having Ed pet them.







And the sun just shines and shines on us all.


Lunch. Ed! Wake up!






Okay. Eat.






Nap.


Hike.


Ah, the hike. A true hike is never without challenges (a nice word for problems). In the past, our issues here have been keeping to the trail. We either can't find the top of the mountain, or we can't find the way down. This time we're thinking a GPS app on the iPhone will help. But no -- we cannot get it working correctly. Still, getting lost is (shockingly!) not the problem. There are two far more harrowing issues for us -- water (too little) and time (too late).

Who shows up at the traihead for their biggest hike of the season at 4:10 pm? We do. With only one liter of water.

It's a brutal climb. We'd done it twice before and I have to think it's like childbirth -- you forget the ordeal the minute the cutie-pie pops out. Here, I'd forgotten how straight up it goes. I mean  -- up.

And it's not even an especially beautiful trail. Occasionally, there are the views...



the great Roussillon plain stretches before us near the beginning of the hike


But mostly, it's a forested path. With flies and still, hot air plastering the shirt to your back. But we continue.

Half way there, Ed tells me -- we don't have enough water.

And still, I want to go on -- if not to the tower of the highest regional peak, then at least to the cliffs that precede it.






We make it there. 6:30 and we're finally at a summit, which, to me, is good. Wonderful in fact, even though I'm thinking that evening hours are not great times to be on the summit of a mountain with only a rocky path to get you home again. Thank goodness for long June days!







So, quick view and we're out of here. Walking as fast as our tired legs can carry us...














We come down. We use sticks to help us navigate the tricky parts. It's good, it's good -- I make my way down ahead of Ed, because on the descent I am fast and he is laboriously careful and I'm moving through the forest when I see it -- a wild boar.

She notices me and instantly leaps into a gallop, her long snout lifted, her hoofs flying.

I am glad she is not flying at me (I say 'she' because she hasn't a tusk). And then I am just so mad at myself that I stood there, mouth open and never once thought to lift my camera and snap a photo.

Ed tells me -- remember the scene. Just remember it. One of my most memorable encounters with wildlife was when a wolf came to my tent. I was at one end, he peered in at the other.

In the course of our many hikes, Ed and I have come across many a wild beast. Bears. Elks. Countless deer. Mountain goats. But never anything in the Pyrenees.

I'll remember it,  I will.




the mountain in the evening: scaling the rocky nose was the final segment of our climb


Dinner? Well now, we didn't make it down the mountain until just before 9, so we eat at home.


 


A salad. Eggs with mega mushrooms. Beans. And smoked salmon from one of the local grocers.





Wild boar, eh? Who would have thought...

a day's agenda

A comment on Ocean writing: if you do the math, you'll see that I have been posting close to midnight, Sorede time. That's because I have been so in love with waking up late and to a fresh day, with no hanging obligations, that I've been determined to be done with it all before I fall asleep. This means that I do the final read-through while half of me has already nodded off. The next morning, in glancing at the post,  I gasp in horror at all the errors that had passed me by. If you were one who read before I hit the edit button, you'll be thinking that I'm really sloppy. Not so -- just sleepy!

Another comment: our days in Sorede are real evidence that I do not live to blog. The routines here -- so pleasant, so beautiful in my eyes -- are in fact repetitive. There's plenty to do that we haven't done before, but, after four years, we also know what most fits our collective (varied) temperaments and so we whittle down the options and repeat our favorites. Which is not unlike saddling yourself with a likable but boring route because it suits your walking habits, even as you know that a spectacular one is actually not too far away.

So you see here a steady repetition -- Ed with cats. Bread shopping. A breakfast with pains  au chocolat. And so on. Perhaps the meteorological backdrop changes (for example, this morning gave us the most perfectly blue skies -- so blue that you could see the snow on the Canigou mountain to the west), but not much else changes with it.




















[And speaking of no change, here they are! The couple that always always shows up, for years on end, at 11 am at the cafe bar  on the square -- she orders a quarter carafe of wine, he orders a beer and they sit and read. Always.]






Still, every once in a while we do something that doesn't repeat a favorite. Going to the town of Banyuls further south certainly isn't an Ed favorite, but this morning I am feeling a tad feisty (rather than wanting to look hard for a common denominator) and so Banyuls (which I love for its commitment to the production of a perfect aperitif wine and also for the way you pronounce the name -- bahnny-ools -- sounding irreverent and silly all at the same time), yes,  Banyuls is on the agenda for this day.

And why the feistiness? Well, maybe because of the late night conversation Ed and I had yesterday. In reviewing the day's photos, I mumbled -- I did not know I looked so odd and lumpy from the back end of things (this, in reference to a downdog beach photo -- one I did not post).
He responds -- I could have told you that, and grins broadly. (Later, he says he was teasing.)

In any case, I bring out the maps for Banyuls. Right after lunch.





(Did you ever play around with double and triple cherries when you were a kid? Dangling them from behind your ear? I did. And I continue to do it when I come across such twins or triplets.)






Banyuls is less than 30 minutes away -- south, really south -- possibly the southern most town in all of France. And it's a busy place. People come here for serious wine shopping. Yachting too, I suppose -- there is a port, though we've always passed it by. I've picked a new attraction to visit this year -- the Mediterranean Gardens up in the hills, on the outskirts of town.

They turn out to be a bit of a dud (Ed's words, but I have to agree). There's not much to the gardens (and believe me, I love nearly all gardens) -- nothing you can't see growing wild on any number of hikes in the area. Serves me right for foisting Banyuls on Ed.

Highlights:
















Gardens done with. What now? I had the idea that we might pick up the eastern end of the GR10 -- the trail that crosses the entire Pyrenee range and ends in Banyuls, but the skies are now looking pouty with clouds and Ed speculates that maybe, just maybe we've hiked this trail segment already -- last year, or maybe the year before.

But the good thing about a mountain range is that within it, there are many mountains to climb. I look around us.
Let's climb that one -- I say pointing rather randomly. It has a church on the crest and possibly a good view. I mean, most mountain tops will offer a good view. Why not climb that one.

And it is a good hike. The clouds come and go, the winds throw terrific gusts of cooling air. To the east there is the sea, to the south there's Spain and all around us are the vineyards that make Banyuls the beautiful place that it is.










at the crest





me, doing who knows what





continuing the hike to the next mountain





a view toward Spain


That was a terrific hike, I tell Ed as we descend.
Much better than I thought it would be... he responds, determined to not ever appear enthusiastic about something as calm as a walk up a mountain on the outskirts of Banyuls.


Dinner: we want to eat salads at our super cool bakery. They close at 8 and so we cannot show up too late. This is the time when we feel most American -- not really following custom, not abiding by the norms. No one, not one single person comes here to eat in the late evening... I mean, how pathetic are you to eat dinner at a bakery that's about to close? But, we get this bug up our nose -- if they're willing to feed us, why not eat? And they are willing, indeed, happy to do so -- they didn't win the entrepreneurial award for nothing --  and so we eat their fantastic salads, as they mop the floors around us in anticipation of closing.






Predictably excellent stuff and, of course, it comes with their most heavenly bread and, too, we purchase countless cookies so it is, in fact, a wonderful albeit weird dinner venue and maybe that's a good way to look at this day too -- wonderful, albeit a tad on the weird end of things.

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.