I speculated in a recent post about the origin of the road through the Defile de la Pierre Lys. It turns that I was way off the mark when I guessed 1930s. I noticed yesterday a statue of Felix Armand in the old town. He apparently was the ‘creator’ of the Defile de la Pierre Lys route and he lived 1742 to 1823.
The plaque says something like The work and perseverance will make our descendants more prosperous.
Some of us have been back at the movies at cinema Le Familia in Quillan.
Some of you may remember my previous post on doggy do. As others have rightly pointed out, it’s not just a Quillan issue, nor necessarily a French issue, and there are undoubtedly worse places for it than here. But there’s plenty of it here.
I knew it was not just me, when I saw that one French inhabitant had gone to the trouble of placing a handmade sign on the fence bordering her property. It took me a while to photograph this as I didn’t want to be too obtrusive, but every time I passed, she was out in her garden – keeping the boundary under surveillance?
Our days – and nights – are ordered by the peal of the bells from the old church, at the end of the rue de l’eglise, just 200 metres from our apartment.
Today we explored the alternative route to Caudies via the Col St Louis. The benefit of this route is that, while a longer and narrower road, it avoids the cliff over hangs of the road through Axat and the Defile Pierre Lys. Continue reading Col St Louis
We have a TV but very limited range of channels, so cannot watch the football at home. Perhaps we will try to catch some of the crunch games at Le Glacier pub across the square, which is showing the matches on their TV screen.
Continue reading World cup football in Place de la Republique
Summer has arrived and it is baking hot. The cafe downstairs apparently got up to 45 degrees yesterday. Upstairs we survive by shuttering the windows during the middle of the day but there’s barely a breeze. The boys went for a dip in the creek after school yesterday. I suspect it will be on the cards again today.
Last night we joined with the Australian neighbours to host the boys’ teacher (the school Principal) for a barbecue dinner on the roof terrace. We let the Australian man the barbie, and they let us bring the pavlovas. The French guest brought the usual dinner table conversation – politics, the economy, the EU and the education sector. We were not at all intimidated about having brought the wine when he said that wine was one of his favourite things about the region (along with the great walking trails). The boys were not at all pressured by having their teacher to dinner. Nor he by being in their company socially. A good time was had by all and Tomos is now reinstated in the morning French classes. Result!
Quillan is a fantastic town, not the least because of the investment the region appears to make in services and infrastructure, despite (or perhaps because of) the economic downturn. There is an impressive programme of events for a town this size, and there has also been a region-wide investment in transport, which means the local train and bus service has not only been retained, but made accessible at a flat one euro per trip to places as far afield as Carcassonne, Perpignan and, I believe, Montpellier! Continue reading Perpignan for a euro
