We have just returned from our trip to the Midi Pyrenees and what a fantastic few days we have had, although it did not start with the most prodigious beginning. The plan was that we would hire a car and leave our little Ami 8 at the hire car park, so far so good. In order to leave the Ami 8 I had to drive our car following Terry in the hire car to the car park, I followed Terry quite nicely and thought to myself “I can’t believe we have got a Mercedes, this will be a very comfortable drive”. So I followed the silver Mercedes around a few roads, then suddenly I hear a car horn next to me and there was Terry in a silver Ford fiesta trying to catch my attention .... yes, I was following the wrong car, poor Terry had to jump a few red lights to catch me up, I am still wondering how far I was going to follow the Mercedes before realising my mistake, I thought it was hilarious, Terry didn’t!!!!
The rest of the journey was nowhere near as exciting, thank goodness. If you are interested we drove from Agen to Auch to Tarbes and through Lourdes to Cauteret, the journey was about 3 ½ hrs including short stops. Cauteret is a small skiing resort nestled in amongst the mountains, the village is stunnily beautiful at this time of year with the trees in their full regalia of autumn colours, I am not sure if it is because I haven’t actually experienced a ‘proper’ autumn for 20 years that I was so blown away by the scenery or what but I can’t ever remember seeing nature quite at its best like this. But, little did I know there was more mind blowing scenery. Cauteret being a skiing resort was pretty quiet at this time of year and the population explodes from December onwards, although its seems as though it is very busy in the Summer months with various activities, white water rafting, trekking, mountain climbing, canoeing etc. The next day we went to the Port de Espange which is a National Park in the mountains and we trekked for an hour to a beautiful lake, it was quite a difficult trek (reminded us of the Inca Trail) with all the rocks and steps to climb, we walked through some patches of snow but once we got higher the sun was shining, not that that made it any warmer, it was bloody freezing, we were glad of the layers including scarves, hats and gloves!!!! The photos will show some of the amazing waterfalls and scenery that we experienced. I must say there is no way that a mere photograph can capture the pure beauty of the area however good the photograph is.
How privileged we feel being able to go on such a short trip to experience a completely different part of France and we are eager to return in the Summer and perhaps do some white water rafting, there is certainly plenty of fast moving rivers.
The weather has been extremely mild in France, although some mornings we have some frost by about 10am it has generally gone with beautiful blue skies and bright sun, I have got to say I love this time of year in France the countryside is amazing and as I said earlier, in Australia we do not have defined change of seasons and just looking outside at the beautiful oranges, yellows and reds it gladdens the ole heart. However, I am glad I have actually experienced this time of year once because I don’t think I would do it again, the sun in Australia is calling and our blood is too thin for the cold mornings and cold evenings!!!!
Back to France, we are due for our final French lesson tomorrow, I am going on my own as the last lesson upset Terry as most of it went over his head, probably because he hasn’t had as much exposure to French lessons as I have had and he freaked when the teacher started conjugating the verbs and this week we are meant to converse with everything we have learnt so far. I must say I am a little nervous as I haven’t done my homework which is meant to done daily so tomorrow morning before I go it will be head down and try and learn a weeks homework!!!
We are almost into our last week of this trip so this will be last blog as we are busy with visitors and closing the house up for the winter. Thank you for taking your time to read the blogs Ihope you have had as much enjoyment reading them as much as I have had writing them. Until the next time. Au voir abiento Terry and Carol
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