tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32498803242010265312024-12-19T04:25:11.788+01:00Visiting and living in the Lauragais countryside of southwestern FranceUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-66126783675479282122009-06-04T22:56:00.007+02:002009-06-04T23:48:28.232+02:00

Spring in the south of France is a reliably difficult month for foreigners who live here. The odd beautiful day lulls you into thinking that winter is gone, only to have gloom and rain settle back in for another week or so. But the days keep getting longer, some temperature threshhold passes, and everthing starts growing like mad. The garden, however, stays too wet and soggy to do anything

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-6683980938296913982009-01-29T21:27:00.030+01:002009-02-03T17:46:41.436+01:00

One of the pleasures of 21st century life in a 17th century building is that you can pretend to know what life was like back when, while enjoying all the modern coveniences. Indoor plumbing. Electricity. Hot water. Refrigeration. Television. High-speed wireless Internet access. Cooking on gas.All these were unimaginable comforts for the farmers who threw up these stone walls seeking little more

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-89126747124604237762008-10-25T23:03:00.012+02:002008-10-26T20:14:40.864+01:00

Fall is a reliably nice time of year in these parts. Not every day, of course, but on the whole the season is very pleasant. More often than not, days are t-shirt warm and the air so clear that the Pyrenees seem close enough to touch. Newly plowed fields are a deep chocolate brown, turning to tan as the soil dries. Wooded hillsides are a mix of evergreen and changing leaves. In the vegetable

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-26370168554750530752008-10-14T20:25:00.007+02:002008-10-18T08:58:08.655+02:00

In the midst of the summer tourist crush, an easily overlooked aspect of the old cité in Carcassonne is that people actually still live there. Today, of course, they have electricity, running water and central heating, not to mention satellite TV and high speed Internet. Yet, medieval traditions survive. Le Tour de L'âne dates from the middle ages, and was originally held on the 28th of July as

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-73751820291317346472008-08-24T11:54:00.005+02:002008-09-12T13:38:41.762+02:00

In this year of Olympic games, a gold medal surely belongs to our summer guests who came up with the "Les Carries Triathlon." Bicycle to the boulangerie and back. Run to the pool. Swim.Not just once, mind you, but every morning. It was hard work no doubt, but someone had to do it.

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-76357045281197961632008-08-01T10:34:00.034+02:002008-10-17T20:56:24.244+02:00

The other day the local newspaper reported an accident in which a 17 year-old girl was killed when the car in which she was riding was rear-ended at high speed on the autoroute. Her mother, sitting beside her, was seriously injured. What was remarkable was not that the accident happened, but the newspaper's editorial comment. According the article the Mercedes, carrying a family headed south for

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-53689076800317806372008-05-11T15:33:00.005+02:002008-05-11T21:28:23.995+02:00

Over the past few years we have visited the Cité in Carcassonne many, many times, and each time we seemed to discover some corner or aspect of the place that we hadn't noticed before. Eventually, however, one too many hot, crowded days took their toll and we stopped going. Now there's a new reason to go back. As of May 10, visitors can now see frescoes dating from the end of the 12th and

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-11200064421382888652008-04-30T00:15:00.020+02:002008-05-11T21:25:19.656+02:00

This week our guests are a delightful couple who wound up with us after finding themselves highly disappointed with a rural gite they had rented. "The pictures of the other place looked so nice," they commented. Well, of course! Everyone tries to put on their best face. So how do you avoid what the French call les lezards (literally, "the lizards"), those unpleasant little surprises you find at

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-66995878351824915612008-04-27T22:20:00.009+02:002008-05-11T17:13:20.754+02:00

Today we went to our first brocante of the season. We finally hit on the perfect strategy for flea-marketing with kids: leave the teenager at home to get her homework done, and tell the 8 year-old to bring his spending money. When the first table we passed had a display of PlayStation2 games, we knew there would be no complaining.In this part of France, at least, brocantes tend to be village-wide

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-57636855167369663132008-03-19T21:07:00.005+01:002008-03-19T21:33:26.266+01:00

The schedule is out for the 2008 Thursday evening marchés in the region. These are a wonderful opportunity to browse and buy local meats, cheeses, vegetables, wines and crafts in the relaxed atmosphere of a nearby village square in the evening. Prepared foods are available to eat on site as well. We'll be at most of them. See you there!The schedule is:Thursday, July 3 Laurabuc (20 min. by car)

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-45726768967157205042008-03-15T22:01:00.008+01:002008-03-18T10:48:54.287+01:00

The myth of the "Pays de Cocagne," a land of perpetual indulgence, can be traced as far back in literature as the early 1200s. The Carmina Burana, an eclectic collection of poems written by itinerant students and monks, includes among its texts references to a land of abundance where the more one slept the richer one became (a fascinating historical backdrop to French President Nicolas Sarkozy's

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-73633735372575529092008-03-12T22:21:00.009+01:002008-03-14T11:15:46.990+01:00

Gites, being self-catering lodgings, have something passing for a kitchen. Many (too many) are pretty basic, maybe a couple of burners, a microwave and a coffee maker. Perhaps the owners figure you'll be eating out most of the time anyway. The kitchen in our gite, however, is pretty good, and not by accident. When we were renovating we had in mind that one day when the kids were off to university

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-49185009603589031332008-03-11T00:04:00.000+01:002008-03-12T22:21:28.287+01:00

Spring has come early to the Lauragais. Despite a brief cold snap, some fundamental threshold in temperature, in the earth's tilt toward the sun, has passed during the last storm. The clouds part and suddenly the morning sun feels warm on your face, the stone walls seem not cold but cool, their freshness something to be preserved against the coming heat of summer. Here and there a cafe or

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-5210576691025696492008-03-06T22:36:00.007+01:002008-03-08T13:35:12.350+01:00

Are you going to rent a car? Here are some useful things to know about driving in France as a tourist. This is the very basics, simplified and condensed.License: As a tourist, your U.K., Canadian or American driving license is valid in France.Transmission: Most rental cars are manual transmission. If you need an automatic, be sure to specify that and reserve well in advance, as there are not many

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-15343074728833661542008-03-04T23:00:00.000+01:002008-03-06T23:50:49.054+01:00

When we first moved to the Lauragais region, it was for a one-year sabbatical. We thought we'd see as many of the sights, soak up as much of the culture, and learn as much of the language as possible in the allotted time before we had to head back to reality. We were perfectly happy to talk to other anglophones -- in point of fact, for the first year or so other anglophones were about the only

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3249880324201026531.post-22154744356294117562008-03-03T23:00:00.002+01:002008-03-12T21:45:21.191+01:00

In the go-go parlance of the web, raison d'être perhaps best translates to that odious phrase, "mission statement." The French is so much nicer, but the essence of the question remains: why is this blog here?There is no shortage of English language prose and tourist information about the south of France. Some of it is good, some is tolerably amusing, and some is just plain bad. Does anyone need

Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0