Limoux Carnaval

Today we decided to check out the Carnaval. The Carnaval boasts being the longest-running in the whole world. According to the information I've read, the festival was first recorded in writing as early 1600s, but it's believed to have been going since long before that.

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first troupe with brass band

For over 2 months each year, 3 times a day on Saturdays and Sundays, the groups come out into the Place de la Republique and visit cafe owners and parade to the public. The players are not recognisable and carry a long wand (carabena) and wear a mask, and are accompanied by a band playing a miraid of tunes. They all carry confetti and after they leave, the place is covered with the colour of the visiting troupe. Today the players went to one cafe and each took a dance partner when the band started to play.

bull with 'trophies'

Note the trophies on the bull....
It's a lovely festive and carnaval atmosphere, and we saw that many people make the effort to come out and see the spectacle. Lots of cameras are poised and people vie for the ultimate position for a good photo. The link below is the best I could find in English with the history, stories, pictures and further links for those interested to read more (take a look, even if just for the photos).

http://www.languedoc-france.info/041106_fecos.htm

Spanish Lady

Cheesy Grin

Side Shows

This morning Limoux was very quiet until late – the reason? Last night was a huge side show and other entertainment – so grand they closed all the major roads around the city so that everything could be set up in the streets.

In the main square you could do some old time dancing, which was very well attended by a variety of generations, on the main drag into town you could see performances of Beatles songs accompanied by stage dancers, alongside there were many food stalls where people could satisfy their hunger.

Further along and in front of the local college were lots of sideshows. The sideshows were frequented mainly by teenagers but not exclusively – the music was louder than loud with thumping beats, lots of laser lights, and plenty of other teenagers hanging out and enjoying the rides, shooting galleries, pick a prize, punch ball to test your strength, floating dicks and so on.

The 'Cake Walk':

The 'Dodgems':

Some nice friendly gendarmes showed a presence but there was no hint of any menace while we were around and they seemed to enjoy watching the young ones having a good time.

Wouter heard people leaving about 4am this morning, hence the late public start. This afternoon after our little outing the roads were closed off once again for tonight’s events. Alors, some more pics of the things we saw during our walk around the shows, starting with the cups on a saucer:

Then by far the most popular attraction for the teens - 'Move It', for which there was a long queue - before 'take-off':

and you can see my legs on the left hand side, 3rd from the top:NOT!!!!

Upside down:


and spinning around (where'd I put my stomach?):


faster spinning then hanging while they pump up the smoke screen - here'e where the screaming starts!:

laser lights, spinning faster and faster, more screaming (especially the girls):

everyone watching then making a beeline for the queue to have a go - if there's any scaring going on, they want a part of it:

Trois Mariages et un Serpent

The last 3 weekends in Limoux we’ve experienced some things we don’t normally see in NZ. For example, the first Saturday in our flat, we heard several vehicles passing – like rush hour traffic – all sounding their horns. We couldn’t figure out what was going on and thought it must be some sort of protest or strike.

I decided to check it out from our balcony as it kept going for ages, then I saw the cars – all decorated with bits of fluffy netting (you know the sort of thing you can use in the shower with gel as a scrubbing aid) which were tied on to the aerial and the wing mirrors, and in some cases the windscreen wipers.

It was a wedding. Of course – we’re not sure at what stage they were, but I guess they were off to the reception. Apparently there are 3 stages of marriage (and, in France there are 6 different types of marriage, we found out recently!) – first a visit to the notary to establish division of property (in case you divorce etc), the second is to the local Maire to provide official representation of the state over the marriage, the third to the church or other venue.

In a seemingly unrelated story, we found a prospective home a couple of weeks ago – an abandoned house we thought, complete with a couple of beehives. I joked with Wouter as I suggested we could call it “the Beehive” (this is a joke for kiwis) – I won’t repeat his answer as I could get expelled from the blog site.

So we decided to be brave and email the Maire of this village, as we couldn’t think of another way to find out if the house was for sale or not. I’ve mentioned before that it can be hard to tell if a place is for sale as they don’t always use signs. In our hopefully polite French we asked what we thought were the right questions. No reply. After almost a week and its status has changed from prospective to ‘dream home’. What to do next. It’s August, everyone is on holiday, also the Maire, we imagine.

Decide to take a trip to the village, walk around and then approach the office to see when Mr Le Maire might be available. We see the door open even though the notice tells us he is away until 20^th August, and hesitate slightly, then encourage each other to go up the steps to the office. Mr Le Maire is in, complete with sash of the republic. Impressive, smart and friendly. Suddenly we are overwhelmed by a large group of people from the village who are attending a wedding (ahh! The sash now makes sense). So after saying 'Bonjour' to 50 people, and they are all safely huddled in the chamber, we retreat downstairs to wait (at the invitation of Mr Le Maire) until the service is over to return to discuss our business.

Lots of cheering and a few minutes later, the party descends and heads to the waiting vicar at the local church.

We go up again to the chamber and explain in our politest way and best French (somehow we managed to rehearse a couple of phrases on the waiting steps). Mr Le Maire tells us, yes, the house was for sale, BUT it has been sold – elle est vendue! There was a dispute, but indeed, now sold. Bubble pops, back to the drawing board and a feeling that we lost something which could have been our dream.

Today, another wedding party passed through the street complete with sounding horns and fluffy netting and lots of cheering, while we were searching galore on the net to try and find a replacement dream home, when came a knock on our door from our neighbour, Irene. She had a snake in her house and she absolutely does not like snakes.

Wouter and me to the rescue. With the aid of a large cardboard box, Wouter shuffled the small box (which Irene had put over the snake) into the larger one, without lifting it off the ground. Then we took a walk to the far end of the river where there is a bit of scrub and released it – it was an adder, about 45cm (1½ feet), was quite a small one and very thin. Wouter put it safely out of the way under some scrubby leaves. Hopefully Irene’s cats don’t bring in another one to play with!

The last couple of days we have walked almost every street in Limoux - one below - (at least, we think so, but we keep finding more and more streets we have not yet walked!) to try and find a property which is advertised which caught our fancy.

Tonight we finally found it (below) but may rethink if we still fancy it after seeing it and checking out the site on Google Earth. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, but there’s no chance of a garden or pool and it looks out directly onto another building, so no view either. Luckily I’m married to a shoe repairer who can replace my worn out soles....

Place de la Republique at night:

Le Festival de Limoux

This evening after watching Inspecteur Barnaby (Midsomer Murders in English) Wouter took Cassy for a walk and then came back and said there was a festival going on in the town square. So we headed on down to see some live stage performances by a group doing Latin American dancing, singing, playing the music etc, all with colourful costumes. Very nice. Of course we didn't take the camera but photos would not have done justice to the performance from the distance we were from the stage.

It was interesting to stand at the back and be an observer also of the crowd – in NZ people would have jumped up and been dancing to the rhythmic and mesmerising music, but most people just watched and clapped at the end of each segment.

It’s around 28 degrees here (sorry Aucklanders!) and almost midnight as I write this. It was lovely to walk down to the square, which is 3 minutes away, and just stand amongst the crowd and not feel chilly. But this weather spawns thunder very easily so we have to keep an eye out on our skylight window.

Apparently France closes down in August as everyone goes on holiday somewhere else (if they are from the sea they go to the mountains, and vice versa) so I think the already slow wheels of bureaucracy will grind to a halt over the next 4 weeks – reminds me of NZ in January about 15-20 years ago.

More soon on the property front.

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.