Category: Life in France

Life in France

Banyuls-sur-mer in 4 days

Banyuls-sur-mer from the apartment terrace

Ah, by the sea. Even before we started looking outside of the US for a retirement spot, our spreadsheet of must-haves included being on/near/having a view of water. At the time, the beautiful Florida home of one of Bill’s sisters could have technically qualified on all three of those points. A similar house for sale right next door to her had a one million dollar price tag and while that would have been fun, we decided to expand our horizons across the Atlantic to France. In Carcassonne we’re a 5-minute walk from either the river or the canal, so we’re definitely near the water but you still can’t look out our windows and see the birds gliding across the surface or fish jumping out to catch insects. However, if one of those birds were to fly from our house directly to the Mediterranian Sea, that’s only 67 km (42 miles), where lots of vacation accommodations await with the promise of “les pieds dans l’eau” or “your feet in the water.” Continue reading “Banyuls-sur-mer in 4 days”

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Life in France

Something authentic

We wore these to greet our neighbors

The last time we had several of our neighbors over for dinner we wanted to serve something authentically American. Had we taken a survey of our guests in advance they probably would have expected hot dogs and hamburgers. A major European supermarket chain has an annual “Taste of America” promotion that would expand on those choices by including barbecued ribs and fried chicken. Even our 10-year-old friend across the street followed a recipe called “Les Vrai Cookies Américains” (Real American Cookies) that we enjoyed as chocolate chip cookies. While all of those could logically be included in a meal from across the Atlantic, we were looking for something different. A Thanksgiving spread wouldn’t work nor would a 4th of July picnic. Then we thought about one of our favorite types of foods that we had tasted only a couple of times since moving: Mexican. Now we’re talking genuine American! Continue reading “Something authentic”

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Life in France, Travel in France & beyond

Two, two, two trips in one

Ax-les-Thermes in the Pyrenees

Bill will readily admit that he’s not an early riser unless, as our friend Pete says, there’s a treat at the end. When you combine our favorite form of transportation, the train, with bargain fares of one euro per person, and the chance to visit two cities along scenic rail routes, that’s one big treat. It was enough to coax him out of bed at 5 AM three weeks before we wanted to travel to snag those cheap tickets as soon as they went on sale. Where were we headed? It might seem strange that during a summer with record-breaking high temperatures we would visit a town known for its hot springs, but we wanted to see this area in the Pyrenees before its other attraction arrived: snow. Continue reading “Two, two, two trips in one”

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Life in France

Not today, Satan

A medieval carved head to scare the devil out of you

Comedienne Bianca Del Rio, sometimes known as Roy Haylock, uses the phrase, “Not today, Satan, not today” when things haven’t gone as planned but she’s determined not to let the devil get in her way. We had that kind of day recently. Today’s blog post was supposed to be about a day trip to a hot springs spa town in the Pyrenees with a stopover on the way home in a once fortified Roman town with a 10th century castle still towering over it. We got as far as Toulouse, about an hour into the trip, when we discovered that our connecting train had been cancelled and later departures were likely to suffer the same fate. We then invoked what is second-nature to us and something we discovered that many French people admire about Americans: an inclination to turn a negative situation positive in an effort to make something successful. Even our friends here have confirmed to us this perceived cultural difference we had read about. Continue reading “Not today, Satan”

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Life in France

Learning English in France

American English or British English

The school year starts here all over the country this week so I thought it might be a good time to talk about a subject that’s often on the minds of French students: learning to speak English. Generally, children around age 10 to 11 receive their first formal lessons of “the language of Shakespeare” as it’s called here, in that transition time between elementary and middle school. Our young neighbor and her classmates are also learning Spanish at the same time which seems wise since half of the 2.5 million visitors that Carcassonne hosts annually come from our neighbor south of the border. It continues to amaze us that seemingly anyone involved in the tourist industry here speaks a minimum of 2 languages, if not 3. On the flip side, we recently had a conversation with a taxi driver who was astonished that we were speaking to him in French despite being Americans since that was contrary to all of his experience with any of his passengers who had arrived from the US. Continue reading “Learning English in France”

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Life in France, Travel in France & beyond

Monze day trip

Monze across the vineyards

When our friends with a car, Sally and Larry, asked us if we’d like to go with them to the village of Monze, the first thing I had to do was look up its location. That’s when the good news started. First off, it was only going to be about a 20-minute ride and then I looked closely at the map to see some of the street names: rue du Cabernet, rue du Merlot, rue du Chardonnay…. Sounds like our kind of place! Sally went on to say that the restaurant she thought we’d enjoy featured wine from the local area and there were 3 vineyards in the vicinity offering tastings. Naturally we said, “yes, thank you” and we were off on another nearby adventure. Continue reading “Monze day trip”

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Life in France

Liberté in Carcassonne

Memorial to the Resistance fighters

It was 75 years ago today that the Nazi troops who had been occupying Carcassonne for almost 2 years received their orders from Hitler to abandon the city. His wishes were carried out the next day by the departing soldiers who had one last despicable act to accomplish. In a compound outside of town where members of the French Resistance were being held prisoner, the Germans detonated all of their remaining munitions in one giant explosion that leveled the building and took everyone inside with it. Several streets in the center of town now bear the names of some of those killed in the blast. While that prison no longer exists, we searched for other buildings that are still standing with stories related to the resistance movement and while this compilation won’t be exhaustive, we did find it as a sign of hope in dreadful times. Continue reading “Liberté in Carcassonne”

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