Today we did our first trip to see a couple of Cathar castles in the vicinity of Quillan. The main reason for today’s trip was actually to get to somewhere from where we might see the Pyrenees proper, but I have it in mind to see and document as many castles as possible while we are here, so I suspect we will be posting more gratuitous pictures of castles. Enjoy! Continue reading Cathar castles
Tag Archives: Quillan
This afternoon I went for my first jog from Quillan. In the banner picture for this site (top of page), you can see the hills to the south, with limestone bluffs near the top. Those hills are enticing. I headed up a road in that direction for half an hour. It was wonderful! Warm sunshine, forest both sides of the road, no vehicles at all.
The adjacent photo is where I turned back – you can see that I was a long way short of the bluffs and the ridge above them. I’m not good at judging how big a hill is and how long it might take to reach the top. So the ridge will be another day – perhaps once the boys have started school next week. I’ll need more time, and I’ll need to carry water.
The tourist office has given us a lot of informative pamphlets, including descriptions of many walking tracks near Quillan. Browsing the pamphlets tonight, I see that there are loop tracks to reach that ridge to the south.
There’s no experience that quite matches a trip to a French hypermarket.
Ten days after arriving in France, we have arrived at our major destination: Quillan. It is a relief to make it this far, after so many days travelling and so many months preparing.
We split the drive south from St Martin le Beau (in the Loire Valley near Paris) over two days. On Saturday we drove half-way to an inn a few km from a town called Collonesque (or something visceral like that), and today drove the rest of the way. Most of the driving was on French A-roads (autoroutes), with speed limits of 130 kph. So we whizzed along pretty quickly, and stopped at motorway services when needed. Thankfully, the weather has improved. We have had clear skies for these two days of long drives. Today’s drive was the best. Being a Sunday, there were hardly any trucks on the roads, and that made it much more pleasant. Continue reading Arrival at Quillan
Last night I confronted my fears and phoned the principal of the primary where we would like the boys to attend school in Quillan. Continue reading Straight to the principal’s office
The boys are looking forward to their trip to France, but it is fair to say they are not especially excited about the prospect of going to school… 😉
We are going to Singapore for one night on the way back, to the hotel where I learnt to swim. We are also going to Paris, Quillan, & Spain. I can’t wait to go… apart from the school part. It will be the hardest thing ever in my life. But the good thing is, there will be two-week holidays before and after, there will be more holidays in the middle, we will get Wednesdays off, and we get to come home for lunch. it will be awesome.
The title of our blog putitontheslate has its origins in my first school slate.
My diary from our 1983 year in France records that we went to Mammouth (French hypermarket chain) and bought the slate, some chalk and a pencil case on 12 October in preparation for my use in class. I also had a cahier (exercise book) for school work that needed to be marked.
One of the first things most people ask us when we tell them our plans is Where are you going in France? When we tell them we are going to a small town called Quillan, about 40km due south of Carcassonne, the next question is Why?
