Evening Walks

We are trying to do a slightly different circuit each night when we go for a walk. We are amazed at how many different ‘hidden’ places there are in the area – and we’ve found that also in Chalabre.

In Limoux where we are now, if we go past the church and up the hill, we find ourselves amongst the grapevines. If we go east along the road just past the river we find a semi-rural road behind the railway line with some lovely views across the valley to the other side of Limoux.

Last night we walked along the riverside a bit further than we have been before and found a weir, which seemed to be allowing more water through than we’ve seen in the last few days, so we checked it out. Behind the weir/barrage is a water tower which appears to be generating some sort of power.

And just behind the water tower/mill is a lovely little park, almost hidden away, but a lovely little spot. It has a place for young children to play – safely fenced off from the water. Then around the corner there is a stand which looks like it is set up for stage plays with some old Roman pillars as a back drop. Lovely.

Walking back we could hear a brass band playing so decided to make a detour to check it out. They just finished (maybe there is a 10 o’clock cut-off for making public noise) and they were a group of youngsters meeting up at the local boules club. It looked like they would have a party afterwards at the cafe across the road. Was wrong about the 10pm cut-off as they started up again just after midnight...

We are also diagonally across the road from the NZ cycling team. They sound like a friendly bunch, but we haven’t been close enough to greet them yet and I haven’t been able to find any news on the net to establish what they are doing in the area.

These are the 'boules' courts behind our property:

Limoux by Night

On Sunday we moved house, well, flat/apartment. We are now in Limoux, which is a lovely old town with some interesting history.

It is in the foothills of the Pyrenees and is in the centre of Cathar country. Apparently there were Crusades against heretics in the 13^th century. They have the longest carnival in the world (so they say) and have a Foie Gras celebration each year at the end of autumn, so we may get to see and taste that one.

The area is in a slight dip in the landscape, with surrounding vineyards and sunflowers, and we ourselves are surrounded by churches and a couple of musea (a piano museum, automate museum, museum of local history and paintings – I haven’t been in any of them yet, but we have time enough in between looking for property. This is the church view from our front balcony.

The river is just behind the property and is beautifully lit up at night. There are ducks on the water so we are being careful where we take Cassy as we’d hate him to start hunting them, especially with little ones around. However, we have found a couple of nice spots to take him in the water without disturbing the ducks, and he’s very keen to get wet, as we found out last night to our dismay. I let him off the leash, believing he would come back to me, but it was so warm and he was determined to have a swim and catch the ball – but, we didn’t have a ball to throw so he wasn’t going to come out without a long splash first!

Just behind the garden where we are you can find a couple of cours de boule, where older gentlemen play boules in the evenings. We are becoming part of the landscape as they call Cassy when we go walking and say bonsoir to us.

There is a market on Fridays and in July also Tuesday evenings. Markets are a great place to pick up local produce and get some good deals, but only if you know your prices – sometimes (but not often) the supermarket is cheaper but then you don’t always know where the produce is from, despite the drive to label items with country of origin.

Anyway, we’re almost settled in now and Cassy loves being with us all the time, and we have our own shower and toilet, which is a bit of a luxury until the novelty wears off again! I’m in my element as I can work in the garden, something I’ve missed over the last few months since we moved from Old North Road. So being able to pull weeds, de-lateral tomatoes, and pick kumquats (and eat them for the first time) was a real pleasure.

Take a look at the pics of Limoux by night. A la prochaine.

This is our street and our place is on the left, just past the no entry sign. Our car is the 3rd on the right from the front.