FRENCH

LEÇON

 #3

récit à suspense

(cliffhanger)

accroché à la vie chère...hanging on for dear life 

After a delightful desayuno of argentins y café con leche with Gemma and Luis, Niki and I

loaded up with all kinds of local provisions and continued on our way to Perpignan.  We had planned a

leisurely drive through all those beautiful sun drenched towns along the coast

BUT  

surprise, it was raining.....HA!

I was back behind the wheel, driving on route N260/D914 along the appropriately named COSTA BRAVA, a torturous, r a i n slicked cauchmar, curving up steep mountains, and then plunging down into villages of narrow convoluted streets.

After about 90 kilometers of driving with hordes of Spanish and French speedsters roaring up behind us, in a rush to make SUNDAY DîNER avec la famille at some fancy joint on a beach in 

Banyuls-sur-Mer, Cerbère, or Collioure

I needed fortification

and so we stopped at Portbou, just shy of the french border

 Restaurant España Portbou

 Though Portbou was windy, dismal, and a bit deserted (SUNDAY) the café con leche was delicious and cheap

 

 Back on the road we passed through the amazing vineyards of the Banyuls and Collioure regions of the Languedoc-Roussillon  

Niki was in heaven, she and her husband own Refugio Ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, and this was her kind of place

I liked it too (when I dared look up from the wheel) but

have fondly titled this escapade as

 terror in the terroir 

It was worth the terror to see the twisty black vines growing out of dark schist terraced rocky hills with their agullas (vertical channels and peu de gall (cock's claw/furrow drains) extending way up the foothills and descending all the way to the sea 

Fermé le Dimanche

an hour later and starving we reached r a i n swept COLLIOURE, not exactly a sunny beautiful day to visit the historic ville where Picasso, Derain, Braque, Matisse etc had spent time 

the french holding fast to their long honoured SUNDAY rituals of church and a leisurely déjeuner,
promptly close up shop at 2
dommage

all the restaurants and shops were
FERMÉ
we managed to find one sandwich caravan parked near the water and got

 deux grands sandwiches, (delicieux) and an earful about the perils of 

PERPIGNAN

according to them, filled with voleurs et gitans, un mauvais endroit 

 nonetheless, a town I always wanted to visit

un labyrinthe de rues...QUEL HORREUR

 Our hotel was in the Old City, a warren of narrow winding one way streets,  
a
 MAZE

 it was getting dark, by the time we reached the hotel's approximate location
the rain continued as

we circled around 4 or 5 times, knowing it was so close, but NOT able to find the right rue....

 suddenly, I saw a car go up a tiny street that I thought was only for pedestrians....et

VOILÀ 
but 
as I drove towards where we thought our hotel was, the road  
narrowed 
and  
narrowed even more 
as the rain continued 
then...it
deadended 
and even PETIT couldn't make the turn....
slowly backing out of there, trying hard not to let the car scrape the sides of the buildings
 I parked
 illegally   
on the sidewalk in front of a bank 
and got out to find 
HÔTEL de la LOGE.

Sick of driving, CREVÉE and having been told the hotel had parking 
 I expected the propriétaire to take the keys and park PETIT 
imagine my 
dismay 
when he told me (in french) 
pas de parking......

pulling out a city map, he said "but an underground garage is not too FAR away" not even a bit sheepishly.....
while Niki got the keys and wrestled with our bags, I sprinted back to the car where two

COPS

were circling PETIT like vultures

I quickly pulled out  
found the garage...

thanking my lucky stars that I remembered how the french system worked, from parking the previous year in San Sebastián

and 
finalement....

Niki and I went out in search of dinner

it was after 8 pm

nothing was open

it was 

SUNDAY

Hôtel de la Loge (red awning) 

 RECETTE 

pour 
DîNER du DIMANCHE

(SUNDAY DINNER)
à Perpignan

leftovers 
from the market in Palafrugell

served on a 
plastic bag

in the hotel room

with a glass of 
acústic 
poured into bathroom glasses

Le Castillet

The next morning, feeling obligated to see something of this slightly gangster town, with it's sinister and ominous overtones, we wandered through the claustrophobic old streets, slightly perdu.  Tanked up on good coffee and croissants, we saw a lot and enjoyed it 
feeling even with all the difficultés it had been worthwhile
being
MONDAY
we bought more provisions 

and happily hit the road again

Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste de Perpignan

CÉRET

where life is a bowl of cherries

paradis

Pablo Picasso

CÉRET

is an ancient village surrounded by the snow capped Pyrénées

It was the birthplace of Cubism in the beginning of the 20th Century and

home to Picasso, Matisse, Dufy, Soutine, Gris, Braque, Miró and many more.

The view from Hôtel des Arcades 

to be continued.....

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

and save the date next

THURSDAY 

JULY 30
6-9 pm   

CATCH A WAVe
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PAINTING SHOW OPENING
95 FENIMORE ST
BROOKLYN NY
It's summer everyone is going to the beach, come visit mine

fog all over

FRENCH

LEÇON

 #2

les cartes flash

 (flash cards)

 LA PLUIE BATTANTE.....DRIVING RAIN

After our petit déjeuner, Niki and I packed up PETIT and departed the Chateau Beauregard, in a 

DRIVING RAIN

Quelle surprise....

We were on our way east to Llafranc, Spain, to visit Gemma and Luis, Niki's friends

and wanted to take route D117 through the Pays Cathare in the Aude region. The propriétaire told me to turn right at the end of the drive....

so we did

Prendre la mauvaise route.......to take a wrong turn

after about 1/2 hour we reached the petite village of BIERT, and realized we had taken a WRONG TURN and were on D618 

 NOT  D117

not wanting to retrace our steps, and ignoring that the rain was turning to sleet 

and thinking that since it was only about 60 kilometers to the D117 at Foix  (Cathar santuary) and we could get there by driving through
Tarascon-sur-Ariège on this road

we kept going.....

MONTER.....TO CLIMB

 past fishermen fishing for truite in the Arac, through the Parc Naturel Régional des Pyrénées Ariégeoises, past the Gorges de Ribaute 

steadily CLIMBING

and then the sleet turned to *SNOW**........and still we climbed, and still it snowed

all the time nervously kissing the left side of the road, honking at every curve, praying that nobody else was as foolish as we were and coming from the opposite direction

snow photos by Niki!  ( I was a bit busy)

tempête de neige....BLIZZARD

and just past the tree line, I glanced up from the road out into a vast expanse of white

and then I.... got....

scared

DESCENDRE........TO DESCEND

Five minutes later we

 reached the summit, COL DE PORT 

and as we started our descent, the snow turned back to rain... then STOPPED and the

sweat started to cool 

grâce de Dieu

grateful to be alive I

had to take a few snaps of the 

cimetière 

auspiciously located, and I supposed filled with less fortunate crazy motorists from the D618

when all at once an IRATE française began screaming at me....

PHOTOS  
sont

 INTERDIT!

Needless to say, the D618 was harrowing but she scared me to death and we sped out of there....
Back on track and starving we stopped in  

Quillan

DEJEUNER...LUNCH   VIN...WINE

We had a great lunch, and an even better wine

where the resident chien presented us with the bill

and took the tip

Skies clearing, we headed for Spain

 Crisscrossing our way on the D117 (which we finally found) through the vineyards of the 

Languedoc-Roussillon

region and catching glimpses of four different Cathar Citadels high up on the rocky cliffs, skirting Perpignan, we finally crossed la  

frontière

frontière....border    silloner.....to crisscross

and promptly got lost in Palafrugell!

Gemma and Luis came and found us and after our 8 hour trip (PETIT did great), we finally arrived at her family home in the seaside CATALAN village of Llafranc, practically deserted in the middle of March

where

VOLEUR DE CUIVRE......COPPER THIEF

 mortified, Gemma explained the casa had no heat.....

it seems some VOLEURS had stolen the copper heating pipes on the outside of their summer house

after surviving a wrong turn, a blizzard, the Hautes-Pyrénées, 

we had to laugh

we took a long walk up the coast to Calella

returning to a warm fire in the wood stove and a fabuloso dîner

RECETTE DU JOUR

Roasted Turbot 

with 

Potatoes and Oignons

Green Salad

+

 Next Adventure:

Le Pays CATHARE +

QUERIBUS

*******************************************

This past January I was commissioned to do a 4' x 5' oil painting

I worked on it for about a month, finishing about a week ago

Documenting my progress here's phase 1

FRENCH

LEÇON

#1

courbe d'apprentissage

(learning curve)

 PETIT le SMART

conduire

chercher

trouver
(drive, look for, find)

I took a petit refresher course in driving a stick the day before
 finding my rental car at the airport in Biarritz,

because I thought there might only be manuals available
HOWEVER
PETIT was manual and automatic (go figure) and it took me a bit of time to find

the A (pothole #1) that the rental agent told me about (in french, partial pothole #2)

and to figure out how to shift into that gear 

I was about to drive to Spain to find my friend Niki at the airport in Irun, my french pals were heading off to Bordeaux to show one of their films, so I was driving alone, in this half a car,
through the Basque country where the road signs are in the undecipherable Basque language

I had a bit of ANXIETY......

I got explicit instructions and directions....double and triple checking them for this 40 minute drive
DON'T SPEED (les flics are very vigilante)
know which lane to be in for the roundabouts
know their version of EZ-pass lanes
know the exact amount of euros for the tolls
AND
I left an hour early in case of  
DETOURS, TRAFFIC, CONSTRUCTION, WRONG TURNS, 
and all those other POTHOLES you don't think about

Here's how to do it
take the A63 to exit one

(detour #1) 
I was so nervous I missed the main entrance to A63 and ended up in St Jean de Luz YIKES

but found another entrance from there...WHEW! 
it had been driven into my head that I had to FIND and get off at 

EXIT ONE
a tiny sign on the right side of the road 
HENDAYEL/HENDAIA 
 or I was sunk....

more sweat

Exit 1 towards Hendaye/Biriatou

merge onto Route de Kurleku

at roundabout take 1st right to Route Béhobie D811

at roundabout take 2nd exit it Pont International
CROSS the border INTO  
SPAIN 

take a breath.....
continue onto Endarlaza Hiribidea

at roundabout take1st exit and stay on Endarlaza Hiribidea

continue onto Juan Thalamas Landandibar Kalea GI 636

at roundabout take 1st right to GI 636

take roundabout to Irun NOT Iruña N 638 Aireportua Hondarribia

continue onto GI 2134

at roundabout take 1st right onto Medelu Kalea GI 2134

continue onto Armitaide Auzoa GI 638

keep right to continue on Gabarrari Kalea

enter roundabout to  
DONASTIA HONDARRIBIA AIREPORTUA
YIPPEE !

I even had time for a sandwich de jamón and a café con leche before Niki's plane arrived

 then
 road block # 1
paying the parking meter....... ?

We had one actual sunny day in Biarritz before taking off for points east, 
and the promise of medieval villages, Cathar citadels, 
beautiful weather, great food and wine.....

first stop
SAINT-LIZIER

Ariège, Midi-Pyrénées, France 
RAIN 

Saint-Lizier is an ancient village at the foothills of the Pyrénées mountains, stretching back to pre Gallo-Roman times. In 72 BC, Pompey, returning from his triumphs in Spain against Sertorius, stopped here. He gathered together the ancient tribes of the area under the name Consorani.
During the fifth century the citadel became an episcopal see, the oldest in the Ariège area. Its first bishop is thought to have been Saint Valier.
The town is named in honor of its 6th Century bishop Lycerius, canonized as Saint Lizier

then 
Saint-Girons

and finally arriving at the
Hôtel Chateau de Beauregard

in the rain
without mishap

 Hôtel Chateau de Beauregard

Hector

RECETTE  
for the  
rOAD 

 maps
"'' '"  """
' "''rain gear'  "
an ashtray filled to the brim with 
euros for tolls
water 
and 
for all those future unpreventable and unforeseen 
WRONG TURNS

and every potential  
DISASTER
* 
a sense of  
HUMOR
an adventurous spirit
the perfect
 COMPANION
 a flexible plan
a good sense of
> DIRECTION >> 
+ 
bread 
saucisson 
cheese
 radishes 
chocolate
 knife 
corkscrew
+ 

  wine 
next stop Llafranc, España on the Balearic Sea