We have just returned from our summer holiday to the
South of France with the family. My Mum & Dad are over from NZ and we went
with them and my Uncle and his girlfriend for a week to the Minerve and Aude
regions halfway between Narbonne and Carcassonne.
We stayed in the quaint village of La Redorte set amongst
wine groves at a lovely gite called Villa Camellia that is owned by the family
of friends of ours. The village has all the usual facilities and also had the
added attraction of being adjacent to the Canal du Midi (an impressive 17th
C construction that joined with other canals to provide a link between the
Mediterranean and the Bay of Biscay.)
Overlooking the ‘Port of La Redorte’ was a restaurant
that benefited by the view and the passing trade from the various barges and
river cruisers on the canal. The eatery Le Rivassel capitalised on the tourists
by putting on an energetic and entertaining final evening for us with Brazilian
night complete with exotic dancers.
We hired a couple of cars for the six of us and
experienced our first driving trauma soon after picking them up as we got
separated on the motorway system as I failed to follow the sat-nav properly. Luckily
both parties managed to navigate their way to the village separately. We only
had minor navigational issues after that due to sat-nav errors or miss-read maps.
Sunday – We drove out to the
historic Cather town of Minerve that sits attractively on a spit of land
between two gorges (one called Brian). It has some lovely craft shops and the
route there goes through some spectacular countryside.
Monday – This day we decided to brave the tourist
hot-spot of Carcassonne, a large walled town that had been restored to its
former glory complete with impressive Basilica and Chateaux. This is a bustling
place full of noise, sights and scents to entertain for hours, and we wandered
around missing the occasional shower until we finished up in a square full of restaurants
where some of us partook of the local speciality Cassoulet (a
stew of haricot beans, sausage, and duck or goose).
Tuesday – Close by is the small and perfectly formed
little historic village of Caunes-Minervois in a town known for its marble,
statues of which could be seen in the park in the distinctive pink and white
colouring. There is a cute Abbey in the village that has layers of historical construction
on view along with a rather unusual art exhibition. The old town was well worth
a wander around and we ended up in a small square where we had a picnic lunch
next to a marble fountain and under the shade of two enormous plane trees. We
made a small detour to the now closed Marble Quarry before we continued on to
our next destination.
Lastours is a small place in the mountains that is known
for the ruins of four castles, Les Quatre Chateaux, which sit above it in the
middle of rugged terrain and provide a dramatic view of their crumbling walls
and turrets.
On Wednesday Mum & Dad stayed at the gite expecting a
visit from friends that did not materialise as the rest of us took one car and
went out for the day. Our first stop was Lagrasse, another old town full of
character and crumbling walls. In the small town centre was a traditional
covered market square and across the pretty river was an impressive abbey.
After lunch we took a very winding and vertiginous road
out to one of the most impressive of the Cather castles - Peyrepertuse Chateaux
– sitting as it does at the top of a mountain ridge where it can dominate two
valleys and, along with its partner castle on the other side of one of the
valleys, protect the approaches from the Spanish boarder. There is a torturous
road part way up the mountain to a car park where you can then continue on foot
up the steep path to the castle itself and there get the most amazing views.
Thursday we ventured further abroad to visit the very
grand and popular Abbaye Fontfroide where we had a guided tour around the
wonderful old monastery, church and rose gardens.
We then went on until we reached the coast and the little
fishing village of Bages, where we had a delightful authentic French lunch at
the tiny Les Jardins de Bages cafe.
On Friday we dropped Mum & Dad off at Narbonne to
catch the train to Barcelona where they joined a bus tour around Spain for the
next week. After we returned to the gite the four of us remaining went out
first to Conques-sur-Orbiel – a case of mistaken identity, and then on to the
town of books Montolieu renowned for its second-hand book stores. Lastly we
went up probably the most frightening road yet to Cubservies there to see the
cascades, supposedly some of the tallest falls in the country.
And as mentioned earlier, our evening, and holiday, ended
with the exotic Brazilian rhythms of the Latin band and swaying hips of the scantily
dancers down beside the canal.
It was a great break I think for all of us and we would
thoroughly recommend the area, the gite in particular, for a family holiday.
