France, Part Two: Apples, Caves and the Catalan Coast

Our last weeks in France, from quiet villages to the Mediterranean.

So, what have we been up to since our trip to Andorra? Well, lots… let’s get into it.

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Mirepoix - Fête de la Pomme

We were staying for the most part near the beautiful medieval town of Mirepoix. Think Beauty and the Beast; throw in some coffee and postcard shops, and you’re pretty much there.

The area around Mirepoix grows a lot of apples, and Mirepoix hosts the annual Apple Festival (Fête de la Pomme) that marks the annual apple harvest and the end of the harvest season in general.

It was really nice to be there and witness an event that happens outside of the normal tourist season. We could tell it was mostly locals, as friends and family members were greeting each other, chatting and drinking together in the Place Maréchal Leclerc in the centre of Mirepoix. I could even tell my French was getting a bit better as I could understand a little more of the gist of conversations.

Local volunteers build large apple sculptures, and each year has a theme. It seems this year’s theme was music.

We stayed in Mirepoix itself for the weekend and had a great time at the festival and the regular Monday morning market, which we also went to most Mondays to stock up on locally made produce.

Grotte de Niaux

The area just south of us is famous for, amongst other things, prehistoric cave paintings, and it has some incredible examples.

We picked out one that seemed to be good and open for us to visit. Unfortunately, as it wasn’t peak tourist season, there weren’t any English-speaking tours, so we just booked a French tour and off we went.

Grotte de Niaux was rediscovered in the 1700s, and as we walked through the dark cave passages, we could see graffiti where people had written their names and the date. I remember one with a date of 1660.

The cave doesn’t have perfectly cut tourist paths through the stone and still retains its natural layout. You actually have to clamber up and down slippery rocks, and there’s no lighting other than the torches we carried. That was part of the experience, and we really got a feeling of what it would be like to explore the caves for the first time.

The cave network spans over 14km in total, but the Grotte de Niaux section we visited is an 800m stretch to the Salon Noir (Black Room), featuring many depictions of bison, horses, ibex, and other animals, outlined in black and drawn between 13,000 and 14,000 years ago.

The girls really enjoyed it, but probably not as much as I did. I’ve always been a sucker for any kind of history stuff.

Roses and Cadaqués

We took a 3-day trip to Spain to visit a place made famous as the home of Salvador Dalí.

We drove about 3 hours and stayed in a place called Roses. Dalí lived in nearby Portlligat, just outside Cadaqués.

Cadaqués was a really nice place to visit. We had a lovely day walking the streets of this little fishing town. At one point, daughter number 2 said, ‘hang on a minute, this spot was in a movie I watched last week’. Sure enough, we looked up the scene in question from the movie ‘The Map That Leads to You’, and it was the exact same spot. I can see why. It’s very picturesque. You can see it below in the bottom right picture.

Cadaques

We went to Dali’s house, but couldn’t get into the museum as it was fully booked. It didn’t matter as we walked around the grounds and had a coffee. It’s a beautiful spot and would be an amazing place to have a house. You can see it in this clip below.

Roses is one of the oldest towns in Catalonia and was founded by Greek settlers from Rhodes between the 8th and 5th century BC. The ruined Ciutadella (the old walled part of the town) still shows traces of the original Greek colony, Rhode. We spent the morning walking around the ruins on the last day before we left.

And That Was Mostly It for France

We had an amazing time in France during the starting leg of this journey. Massive thanks to our friends who hosted the five of us for what turned out to be six weeks in the end.

We didn’t get out and around Europe as much as we originally thought. We really needed the downtime that their hospitality allowed us to enjoy, though. So, two months after leaving, we set off back to England in a much more relaxed state than we left in.

The three-day drive back to the UK passed without any drama. We drove onto the Eurotunnel train again (now called Le Shuttle), and we were back in Old Blighty.

We had lots of jobs to get done in England while we were there. The hardest job turned out to be selling the car we’d bought for the trip to France. We got it sold, though, just in time for our next big adventure, which this time takes us to…

…Thailand!!

more soon.

Stay free.

Simon.