Once we figure out what “Mediterranean Style” means we think that’s how we want to decorate the house. After all, we’ve moved to the south of France so we want our home to reflect that choice but just what does that encompass? There are the colors, the styles, the materials, the furnishings, the accessories, etc. I think that we’ve discovered the traces of where to begin. Continue reading “Traces”
One of the nice things about not having a car is that when you walk everywhere you have time to stop when something catches your eye. It doesn’t matter if it’s a shop with an interesting window display, a Medieval carved doorway that you want to investigate, or even those flowers you want to take the time to smell. We sometimes take the city bus to a shopping area outside of town and near the stop where we get on is the marker you see in the photo. Of course I had to find out why this stone had an upward pointing arrow and the words Meridien de Paris. Continue reading “A line to The Da Vinci Code”
Earlier today at three different locations the city marked the 72nd anniversary of the liberation of Carcassonne from Nazi occupation; at two memorials and at the site of a former prison. Each ceremony was similar including the national anthem, a moment of silence and the laying of a wreath. Bill and I have long maintained that learning history is much more interesting when you actually see a castle in person, visit a museum where a famous painting is displayed, or walk through a cave that humans inhabited 20,000 years earlier and view the artwork they created. What I didn’t count on is how moving it can be as well. Continue reading “Liberation of Carcassonne”
Carcassonne has an open-air market 3 days a week and we often walk over there even if we don’t need any fruits or vegetables, just for the free entertainment. The colorful displays of fresh produce, some of which might have been in the ground or picked just hours before, are interesting enough. Add to that perhaps a guitarist, a dance troupe, drummers, a jazz or pop trio, and your morning is off to a great start. Last Saturday was no different except that Bill told me we’d be listening to “The Winds of Angels”. Now I was intrigued. Continue reading “In the market for music”
If you say the word “mythology” I bet that visions of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses come to mind. What if you add in French to the mix? Maybe kings and queens, cheese and wine, poodles and fries? Now that we’ve lived in France for a few months I thought that it would be interesting to compare our experiences with what we’ve always heard it should be. Continue reading “French mythology”
If you’re in the US and tell someone that you are from Washington they might assume that you mean the state but it could easily be the nation’s capital or about 25 other cities, towns, mounts, and ports around the country. According to the post office, if you address a letter to Springfield without including the state name, they will have a choice of 41 locations where it could be delivered. Last Sunday our neighbors asked us to go with them to a festival in Villelongue which we had to look up in a mapping program to see how long the car ride might be. Since there are a dozen towns or villages in France with that name, we hoped they had chosen the one about 45 minutes south of Carcassonne. Continue reading “Which one?”
Do you remember Western Auto®? Long before big-box stores and their parking lots filled acres of land around the edges of cities, small-town Americans went shopping for kitchen appliances, televisions, washing machines, beds, lawn mowers, and bicycles in a compact, family-owned store like those. It was the kind of place, as Bill tells the true story of when he was growing up, that before you purchased one, would lend you two TVs to try out, even on Super Bowl Sunday. Guess what store we stopped into last week on Carcassonne’s pedestrian shopping street. Continue reading “Small town shopping”
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