Road Rage, Relaxation and Dogs

It was the second week of November and we lounged by the pool in the Valencian sun. It was a balmy 78 degrees and we now knew why hoards of Northern Europeans flock to the Spanish coast to escape the long, dark winter. Home for the next two days was a low-slung, whitewashed hacienda set amidst sprawling citrus groves in the rolling hills about 30 minutes west of the Mediterranean coast. Everywhere we looked, flat bowls overflowed with tiny, sweet tangerines and a pile of dried peels on the patio was evidence of how much we enjoyed them. We’re heading towards Andalusia in the south of Spain and this stop cut our nine hours of driving time from Barcelona to Granada down to about six. Spiky hedgerows of lavender, heather and agave bordered the winding, mile-long private driveway to the relaxed Mas de Canicatti and I noted as we entered that it would be perfect for an afternoon run. In fact, the day after we arrived, Joe and I both went running and the highlight of my five miles was that I saw my first actual pomegranate bush on the approach road. I’d never before even considered how and where this exotic fruit grows, but I stopped in my tracks as I saw a beautiful golden-leafed bush with apple-size orange-red fruit weighing down its branches amidst the lavender. What a delight! I now know the provenance of the delicious pomegranate seeds in the morning’s fresh fruit salad.

The tranquility of the Mas de Canicatti was a welcome relief after the frustration of our drive from Barcelona. Soon after leaving the city, we quickly learned it’s considerably safer and easier to be a pedestrian than a driver in Spain. We picked up our rental car in town, headed straight for the port and looked for signs for the Autovía del Mediterráneo (A7) that would bring us south along the coast. Joe hugged the outer lane of the roundabout that circles the Cristóbal Colón column, ready to scoot off towards the autovia as directed. Our roundabout strategy seemed reasonable to us but our fellow drivers had other plans. They cut straight across the circle from the center, crossing lanes willy-nilly to exit as they pleased, thereby making those on the circle rim (meaning, us) targets of their haphazard escape routes. We went around the huge rotary twice desperately searching for signs for the autovía. While we managed to survive the Cristóbal Colón 500 road race and make it onto the highway, we quickly learned that serious struggles with the road signs in this country were on the horizon. Warning: Spanish road sign rant ahead! Language wasn’t the problem; the simple existence of clear road signs was. Spanish signage doesn’t even come close to that of France. Even allowing for some time to get used to the nomenclature and unfamiliar coding, the signage just doesn’t work for us. It is too sparse, too small and contradicts itself often. In no time, we found ourselves sucked off the autovía and heading up a steep incline into the hilltop suburbs of Barcelona on a not-so-super-highway because the all-too-tiny arrow for continuing on the A7 didn’t catch our eye until too late. Argh... Yes, here I go again about France, but in that brilliantly drivable country, even the narrowest country byway, miles from any town and tread primarily by farm machinery, is well marked. And the signs don’t just direct you to the next little obscure hamlet. They always post the name of a good-sized town at every intersection with signs that let you know if you’re headed in the right direction. The alpha- and color-coding on every sign lets you know if the road you’ll be taking is a local road (white with no number), a department road (yellow and it starts with a “D”), a national route (red and it starts with an “N”) or an autoroute (blue and it starts with an “A”). If armed with a decent map, even one that simply goes down to the tertiary towns, you’re in good shape. You just connect the dots and then follow the signs. In Spain, on the other hand, markers at even sizable roundabouts will likely only direct drivers to the next town over. OK, fine, but not very helpful. I don’t much care if San Pau is to the right, Bonavista is to the left and San Cugat is straight ahead. I want to know which arm to take off the rotonda if my destination is Valencia! Even the indication of a larger waypoint, like Tarragona – halfway between Barcelona and Valencia, would be helpful. Despite the opaque signage, we managed to find our way to the Mas de Canicatti, with a detour or two sprinkled in, but I couldn’t stop questioning why the signage waited until we were almost there to indicate we were heading towards Valencia.

After a relaxing two days surrounded by orange, lemon and lime trees, we were ready for another day of tackling the Spanish roads. The landscape south of Valencia quickly resembled that of sunburned Tucson with rough, rocky peaks rising to the east of the highway and scrub pines and cactus dotting the arid flats. We made the long drive to Granada with minimal road sign rage and were astounded at how the snow-capped Sierra Nevada rise improbably to the southeast from the desert landscape of the city below. We then headed south 30 kilometers to the tiny, whitewashed village of Chite (Chee-tay), where we’ll be staying for the next two weeks. We’re renting a traditional three-story home, Casa Conejillo (Rabbit House), halfway between Granada and the Mediterranean – about a half hour drive to each. We’re hoping it will be a good base for exploring much of Andalusia.

While driving into Chite, the first thing we noticed is how many of man’s best friends were roaming the streets: all of them with collars and all of them friendly. We have arrived in the land of a thousand dogs, and of course, in the land of all they leave behind. Given the name of the village, imagine the fun we’ll have coming up with new, more appropriately descriptive pronunciations.


Pictures of our adventures: http://gapyeargirlgoestoeurope.shutterfly.com

Guidebook Monogamy

I have a few questions for Rick Steves, but I’ll start with: How do you write a guidebook to Spain and not even mention Valencia, the country’s third largest city? Yes, I read the front matter disclaimer that you’re presenting only the best of Spain and that of course, it’s just your opinion, but Valencia might have at least merited a minor mention and perhaps a note about why you decided not to expand on it, non?

Joe and I have been fans of the Frommer’s travel guides ever since we first started using them as country-specific companions to our Let’s Go Europe back in the 70s, and long before I knew I would become a close friend and colleague of Danforth Prince, one of the guides' legendary writers. Before we left Paris last month, we visited the WHSmith bookstore on the Rue de Rivoli to pick up a copy of Frommer’s Spain. Unfortunately, they were all out, so we settled on the blue and yellow volume by Rick Steves. We’ve long enjoyed his TV shows, Europe Through the Back Door, so we decided to give his books a try.

We’re going back to Frommer’s. The first mark against Mr. Steves is what I alluded to above: it appears that he simply ignores entire cities and areas of a country he either doesn’t deem important or in which he has no interest. We had read an interesting New York Times article about the Costa Brava and its beaches that extend north from Barcelona to the French border. The article praised the rugged coastline and its hidden gems of deserted coves and authentic fishing villages. We were anxious to see what our new guidebook had to say about the area but were astounded to discover that it wasn’t even in the index -- not a word about the Costa Brava or Girona, it’s principal city. Our next search was on Barcelona and while the book helped us find exactly the kind of hotel we wanted and guided us expertly on a walking tour of the Barri Gotic, it was sorely lacking when it came to eating out. One of the highlights of traveling for us is experiencing the food and restaurants of other lands and our Rick Steves guide gives epicurean pleasures short shrift. As just one example, Picasso spent his formative years in Barcelona and frequented the now famous Els Quatre Gats (literally, The Four Cats, but figuratively, The Four Dudes) cafe where he met with other artists like Utrillo, Casas and Gaudi and staged his first individual exhibition. Why would Rick Steves not include this former hangout of the bohemian Barcelona set in his book? Els Quatre Gats is mentioned several times in background notes and artwork descriptions at the Picasso Museum. Even if Mr. Steves doesn’t like this cafe, shouldn’t he at least list it for historical reasons and for those wanting to pay homage to the Spanish masters with a beer or glass of wine?

A friend graciously passed along multiple green Michelin guidebooks before we left for our trip and we used many of them in France. I’m afraid that for the most part, I found the writing style cold and without personality and the books indecipherable because of how they were organized. It’s almost as if travelers need to know exactly where they’re going first in order to make the books of any use. If Rick Steves is overly selective, Michelin is excessively comprehensive. I couldn’t see the forest for the trees! I wasted more time than I care to remember just trying to figure out what we wanted to see and where we wanted to go because absolutely everything was covered. Michelin does use a star system to indicate what they recommend, but I found that in many case the un-starred sights were covered more fully than those highly recommended. And the index was useless. I would often look up a town or a monument we had read about elsewhere and not find it in the index only to unexpectedly discover it later when flipping through the text. There is little if any mention of food and restaurants (they have a whole separate series of red guides for these details). Call me crazy but I want all my travel info in one handy resource. Until we left France, I had lugged along several additional Michelins that covered other countries we’ll visit, but I lightened my load substantially by leaving them all behind in Puylaurens, hoping they’ll be adopted by someone else whose traveling style they better suit.

Does the reference we enjoy using when we travel simply come down to familiarity? Do we like Frommer’s because we’ve always used Frommer’s and are used to the friendly writing style and easy-to-understand two-color layout? Perhaps familiarity plays a role, but I’ve also realized that guidebooks have personalities and what works for one traveler may not work for another. We love Frommer’s because like Rick Steves’, the writer’s personality shines through, but unlike the latter, Frommer’s includes all the sights, restaurants and hotels you’d expect and provides opinions, even if it’s something like “the place is overrated and overpriced, but you may want to try it because it’s a legend.” Rick Steves would simply not include it and Michelin would give you Micheneresque detail on the place’s history that would eventually put you to sleep. We have Frommer’s Morocco to guide us through this country that we’ll visit at the end of the month and it provides us right up front, “The Best Of...” Every book in the series lists its favorites first thing, and our Morocco guide includes “Best Unforgettable Travel Experiences,” “Best Kasbahs and Medinas,” “Best Authentic Culinary Experiences” and “Best Natural Morocco,” among others. We always find these superlatives invaluable as we plan our trips to take in as many as possible. Frommer’s covers a wide range of budgets and includes plenty of splurge options, should you want to spend a little extra. But Rick Steves sticks with the basics and although he may mention “somewhere special,” he gives it only a cursory description. If I’m going to celebrate with a stay at a special hotel or a meal at an exquisite restaurant, I want my guidebook to wax poetic and get me excited for the event.

The good news out of all this is that I’ve learned something valuable. Travel guides, like spouses, wine and cheese, are not interchangeable. They have distinct characters and you have to find what works for you. I strayed for a bit and had flings with Rick Steves and Michelin, but I’ve learned my lesson. I’m committed to Joe, Sancerre, époisse and Frommer’s: I’m back to being a monogamous happy traveler. 

Bella Barcelona

We knew France was definitively behind us when our train pulled into the Barcelona Sants station a half hour late. Our 6:54am TGV (train à grande vitesse) left Toulouse exactly on time and the train we then transferred to in Narbonne departed not a second late as well. But apparently all bets for an on-time arrival were off once we crossed into Spain. As we slowed to a screeching stop at the border, an announcement was made about changing trains. Despite the fact that we had been assured we would not have to transfer again, I woefully harked back to my back-backing trip in the seventies. In the dead of night my companions and I were awakened at the Spanish border town of Irun, had to gather our packs, get off the French train and sleepwalk forward about 200 yards to then board the Spanish train because the French train’s wheels wouldn’t run on Spain’s wider track gauge. Apparently, this is still true for many of the trains in Spain (along with Portugal, they are the only country in Europe with the wider gauge) and the unlucky passengers crossing the borders into and out of France on these lines still have to do the border train shuffle. But luckily this was not the case for the variable gauge train we booked that runs from the Mediterranean coastal towns in France to Barcelona. Thank goodness I had misheard the announcement and no, we did not have to change trains and lug all our bags forward. Rather, they had to push the wheels of each car out to accommodate the wider tracks of the Iberian Peninsula’s system. What a way to run a railroad!

Now that we’re in a new country, the familiar doorbell chime greeting of “bonjour, messieurs-dames” every time we walked into a shop or hotel has been replaced with the simple, straightforward “hola.” And we’re reminded at every turn by the abundant bright red and yellow striped flags and the street signs and billboards (the words of which I can only decipher a few), that we’re actually not yet in Spain; we’re in Catalonia. I mentioned before that what at first glance appears to be a mixture of Spanish, French and Italian is actually quite different. Here and there I’ll spot a familiar word, like bella for beautiful (belle in French and the Italian mirrors the Catalan), carrer for street (calle in Spanish) or gambeta for shrimp (gamberetto in Italian). Ordering food off a Catalan menu can be a real adventure!

Barcelona has genuinely surprised us. Sometimes it’s better to arrive in a place with no preconceived notions, not knowing what to expect and allowing it to unfold for you on its own. And that’s just what we did with this beautiful city. We read only enough of our guide book to help us decide where to book our hotel and then stopped. We’d concentrated all our time and energy on the logistics of moving from one country to the next (repacking all our bags and leaving behind what we could live without, returning the rental car and catching the train) that we suddenly realized we had no idea what awaited us in Barcelona. All unpacked and settled into our bright, modern hotel in the center of town as our base for the next five days, we turned to each other and asked, “now what?”

On our very first morning we experienced one of those unexpected, laugh-out-loud moments that surprise you when you travel. In the bright hotel breakfast room, painted pale green and decorated with plentiful plastic oranges and daisies, we were the only two Americans filling our plates from the buffet. Imagine our surprise when the English-language rock music playing in the background launched into the original version of Cee-Lo Green’s “Forget You.” We almost dropped our coffee cups in our laps. Are they really playing the uncensored song? “I'm like, 
f*** you! 
And f*** her too!” No one else in the room even flinched. Ah, the beauty and innocence of enjoying another country’s music while you have no idea what the lyrics mean...

The fact that we arrived in the rain and that the showers continued for two days didn’t dampen our spirits or our introduction to Barcelona in the least. The chilly two days of downpours were followed by three days of brilliant sun and blue skies with temperatures near 70 and we spent hours wandering the city and exploring the sights. There’s an upbeat vibe to Barcelona – it’s a happy place with lots of happy people and the energy is contagious. Comparing our experience in France, bodies are broader, hair a bit darker and people move with an unmistakable lightness of step. The bread doesn’t even come close to the French variety, but the fact that all form and color of tapas are available all day is a pleasant plus. While no other system can surpass the Paris metro in my book, Barcelona’s subway was clean and easy and efficient and could mount a serious challenge. The colossal, central public market just off the main pedestrian way, La Rambla, the Mercat de la Boqueria, makes the open-air markets we visited in France look like roadside farm stands. Filled with hundreds of stalls selling every type of fresh seafood, meat, cheese and produce imaginable and fringed with countless hanging hams, the lofty ceilinged indoor market -- a vegetarian's nightmare -- buzzed with activity and a cacophony of chatter. Tourists, elbow-to-elbow with locals jostling to buy their daily groceries, snapped photos of exotic creatures from the sea on beds of ice, all color and variety of fruits and vegetables piled high and the brown and red awnings of Spain’s beloved jamón.

Barcelona is much like Los Angeles geographically in that it is nestled between the hills and the sea. But we weren’t prepared for the number of distinct neighborhoods, parks and monuments both up high in the hills and down by the sea. There are even Barcelonan surfer-dudes with their boards perched on the shoulders heading off to catch the waves along the man-made beach by the harbor. Yes, there were actually some pretty good waves crashing on the shore from the Mediterranean. We had no idea. To help us discover more surprises, get our bearings and orient us to the far-flung highlights of the city, we decided to join the other tourists and take one of the ubiquitous hop-on/hop-off, open-topped busses that snake through town, stopping at the major sights.

The number one stop for any visitor to Barcelona is Antoni Gaudí’s Sagrada Familia church, the architect’s unfinished masterpiece still being built and that won’t be completed for another 25 years. There are simply no words to adequately describe our astonishment at the first glimpse of this sandcastle sculpture in the middle of a residential neighborhood. It is unlike any structure we had ever seen. We were equally fascinated and charmed by Gaudí’s colorfully tiled Guell Park carved out of the hill, its paths delineated with his irregular, organic fences and jagged overhangs. The fanciful buildings that undulate in the chic Eixample district made us stop and marvel at the magic of their mosaics and vibrant serendipity. I’m embarrassed to admit that I had no idea just how much Gaudi and the Catalan modernistas influenced this lovely city. I found myself wishing I were an artist or fashion designer drawing inspiration from the lively work of Gaudi and his contemporaries. Beyond these visionaries’ whimsical work, so many other buildings in Barcelona are simply beautiful structures graced with delicate shutters in yellows and greens and that seem always to be open, unlike all those that were closed in France. And every window has a balcony of wrought iron or stone, beckoning its residents outside. We visited the Picasso Museum, which houses much of Barcelona’s other renowned native son’s intriguing early work, hidden in the dark narrow streets of the ancient Barri Gotic quarter. Again, I suspect that were I an artist, my creative juices would be overflowing and I might never want to leave this lovely city.

Barcelona was artsy and classy and fun and delicious, all at the same time. Arriving with no idea of what to expect, it surprised us at every turn and made for an excellent entry into Spain. 


Pictures of our adventures: http://gapyeargirlgoestoeurope.shutterfly.com

A Significant Milestone

November 7^th is an important date for us. First, it’s Chris’s 27^th birthday, and just as it was so difficult to be away from Caroline on September 21^st, the celebration of her 24^th year, we hate being so far away from our son as he turns another year older. But the second reason this is a critical marker makes being at a distance a little bit easier. One month from today, the kids fly from DC to Milan to travel with us for two weeks in Italy. And while we certainly don’t want the next four weeks in Spain, Portugal and Morocco to fly by, we’re eagerly anticipating the arrival of our children across the pond. The itinerary for the four of us includes five nights in La Spezia where we’ll hike the Cinque Terre, visit the leaning tower in Pisa and have lunch in Portofino; one night in a Relais & Chateaux property, L’Albereta, in the lake district; five nights in the Dolomites where we’ll ski for a couple days; and finally, two nights in Verona, the city of Romeo and Juliet (in fact, our Verona hotel is appropriately named, Hotel Giulietta e Romeo). Reason number three to note the date is that two months ago today, we flew out of Dulles to start our one-year sabbatical. We’ve had our ups and downs, but overwhelmingly ups, and have learned so much about ourselves and the world already. So, with two months under our belt and two months wiser, we’re immersing ourselves in Spain with the glimmer of our visit with our children on the horizon.

Pictures of our adventures: http://gapyeargirlgoestoeurope.shutterfly.com

Puylaurens: Home of Marianne

On our penultimate night in France, we polished off our last bottle of Sancerre and enjoyed our usual in-room dinner menu of bread, cheese and ham. We spiced things up a bit this time, however, with an epi (a French loaf comprised of a series of French rolls strung together, thereby providing much more crunchy crust than a regular baguette) and some store-bought tabouli. Watching the finale of Master Chef, the French version of one of our favorite reality shows, Top Chef, topped off our relaxing evening. Almost identical in format and pacing to its American cousin, even down to the sometimes-cranky bald guy judge (Tom Colicchio’s long lost twin), Master Chef failed miserably in the selection of its lackluster female host who is very simply no Padma. And while the purse for the winner was a mere 15,000 euros, there was plenty of tension in the kitchen over masterpieces gone wrong.

On our last night in France for a long time, we’ll be having a lovely dinner at our hotel, the Cap de Castel. We could not have chosen a better place to spend our final nights in this country. About an hour east of Toulouse, it sits high in the hill town of Puylaurens and looks out over the gently rolling farmland at the base of Le Montagne Noire. Housed in buildings from the 1600s and beautifully renovated with exposed beams, earthen colored tile floors and ochre painted walls, the hotel is a real find. It’s a member of the Hotels de Charme et de Caractère association, which is how we found the little gem, and it definitely lives up to this label. We had dinner here on two nights of our stay (and are looking forward to a third tonight) and each superb meal was priced well below our budget. We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our time here, and to add to our enjoyment is the fact that we paid less than $100 a night by taking advantage of the off-season stay-three-pay-for-two offer. We’re staying for a total of six and will only pay for four. There are definitely some advantages to traveling off-season.

We arrived in Puylaurens after a long drive from Andorra and at first glance, things weren’t so wonderful. The entire town was boarded up behind closed shutters and the roll-down, garage door-like steel security walls that hide businesses and restaurants when they’re closed. “Oh great,” we thought, “yet another abandoned town.” We finally realized, however, that it was the important French holiday weekend, La Toussaint (All Saints Day) and that almost all businesses would be closed for the entire weekend. November 1, All Saints Day, fell on a Tuesday this year and was an excellent excuse for a four-day weekend. Much like in the US prior to the seventies, it’s hard to find anything open on a Sunday or on any day of a holiday weekend. We’ve had more than one disappointment and change of plans because we forgot that Sunday means closed. It’s a regular reminder of just how different France and the US are and of the familiar generality that while the French work to live, Americans live to work. We’ve witnessed several anecdotal incidents that suggest that perhaps the profit motive isn’t quite as strong over here as it is back home. On multiple occasions in Paris when we lunched near the Eiffel Tower or walked through a park, men in business suits were reclined on benches taking long midday naps. What an attitude! Can’t imagine finding business people in Manhattan daring to take a full hour out of their workday to snooze in the sun. We’ve also seen restaurateurs turn away business at 2:10pm because they stopped serving lunch at 2. Most likely the cook had already gone home – no working overtime for him or her. When the long Toussaint weekend was over, the shutters opened and the steel walls went up and Puylaurens was back in business. Although not a particularly pretty town, it is a vibrant one with plenty of citizens on its streets and a busy open-air market on Wednesday morning. Wholly unexpected was learning that Puylaurens is the birthplace of the French national moniker Marianne. I never would have imagined that our itinerary would just happen to land us in the hometown of my French namesake. Just as Uncle Sam is a symbol for the US, so Marianne is the symbol of the French Republic, representing Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité and appearing on its stamps, euro coins and official seal. We’ve learned that the first use of Marianne as a symbol of France was in a song of the revolution (la Guérison de Marianne), composed in 1792 by the cobbler-poet Guillaume Lavabre – a native son of Puylaurens. Who knew?

The weather has been gorgeous during our stay in this little town: a mix of sun and clouds (and just a little rain) and temperatures in the high sixties. We did a six-kilometer randonnée (a government mapped and marked hike through the rolling farmland hills), ran seven miles along the Canal du Midi (the plane tree-lined waterway built in the 17^th century to connect the Atlantic with the Mediterranean) and have read for hours on the sun-drenched hotel patio. We’ve done our best to enjoy the warm fall weather before packing up and departing at 0 dark 30 tomorrow morning to drop off the car in Toulouse and catch the train to Barcelona.

As we prepare to leave France, Spain is slowly coming into focus. After all the picturesque medieval spaces we’ve stayed in over the past month, with the cold drafts and spotty Internet that come along with them, I actually told Joe something I never thought I’d say. When he was researching and Googling possible Barcelona hotels, I actually heard myself caution, “Remember, Joe, we want bright and modern. We’ve had enough atmosphere to last us quite a while.” Being on the road for this long can sometimes change your priorities.

Pictures of our adventures: http://gapyeargirlgoestoeurope.shutterfly.com

Lost Horizon: Andorra

Our five-day trip up into the Pyrenees was an enjoyable but strange one, filled with little surprises, and couldn’t have been more different from the time we spent in the Carcassonne area. We left Languedoc-Roussillon and headed further south, deep into the bowels of the French Pyrenees towards the Spanish border.

Our scenic four-hour car ride was slowed not only by the hairpin turns Joe negotiated so skillfully, but also by gargantuan trucks and a herd of sheep. In the tiny mountain town of Sainte-Colombe-sur-Guette, we had to pull into an alleyway to avoid a face-off with three eighteen wheelers heading down the mountain. We graciously gave them the right-of-way but questioned whether they could actually make it down the narrow village street. Just where we had backed into the alley, the road took a slight turn, making the passage of each long truck between the village buildings a tricky proposition. The lead truck stopped just before the bend, the driver got out, surveyed the situation, scratched his head and puzzled over whether his ten-pound truck would fit through the five-pound road. The driver of truck number two walked down and joined driver number one, both scratching their heads, gesticulating up and down and back and forth and surveying the situation from a variety of angles. Joe got out of the car to take pictures, engineer-that-he-is, very interested to see how these guys were going to make the geometry work. After some brief discussion, driver number one got back in his truck and driver number two helped guide him through the narrow bend. When truck one was safe, driver number two climbed into his cab and driver number three walked down to help him navigate the turn. This delicate dance was repeated again with truck number three and driver number two. We had a ringside seat for all the backing, filling and eventual liberation of all three vehicles. As I’d mentioned before, Europe makes their trucks big, all well and good for the autoroutes, but it leads to some very real drama on the byways.

Our next obstacle appeared soon after we turned onto what was barely a one-lane road that twisted further into the mountains towards our next destination, Molitg. We hadn’t passed another car for miles (thank goodness because there was no room for anyone but us) and were enjoying the gorgeous scenery (finally some fall color!), when around a sharp bend, we found ourselves blocked by the most astonishing sight: a herd of over 100 sheep, a pack of herding dogs and a shepherd making their way up the road ahead of us. We were amazed and enthralled, our mouths wide open. Slowly following the pack for about a quarter mile, we were spellbound by how the shepherd orchestrated the procession from behind, whistling, clucking and waving his staff, letting his dogs know just what he wanted them to do. The dogs responded immediately and efficiently, following his every order to move the sheep along and rescue those that strayed. Although we had miles ahead of us and needed to pick up our speed, I was sad when at a fork in the road the herd went left up a mountain path and with a wave to the shepherd, we turned right to continue along the road. As we got back on our way, Joe commented incredulously, “I thought this stuff only happened in the movies.”

Two days in the spa town of Molitg-Les-Bains where we stayed in a baroque folly of a hotel, Le Chateau de Riell, was an interesting stop. Not sleeping in yet another medieval building was a welcomed change. At first glance, the chateau appeared to have been from perhaps the 16^th century, but was actually built in the 19^th in the baroque style as a crenelated tower in the middle of the woods. The little town of Molitg with its warm springs and therapeutic hotels was a precursor to the other worldliness to come. Europeans take their thermal waters seriously as we witnessed at dinner on one of our two evenings in the spa town. We had a delicious gourmet dinner at the chateau the night we arrived but on our second night, we had an equally tasty but much more modest meal at Le Grand Hôtel, a health resort just down the road. The dining room was about a quarter full when we arrived, but soon thereafter, additional patrons started to arrive, most of them singles. Each diner had an assigned table, much like on a cruise ship, and his or her already opened bottle of wine was waiting. No orders were taken, as it appeared that all but we were on a pre-set meal plan, and the food served to the spa quests was of the healthy variety. Dishes included lots of greens and plain proteins and dessert was very light. It was difficult to put our finger on what made the mood and all these people dining by themselves strange, but there was a Stepford quality to it all. The gentleman sitting next to us, perhaps in his fifties and all by his lonesome, was a bit frail, as were many of the others in the dining room. He quietly finished his grassy meal, drank exactly one glass from his bottle of red wine and left for perhaps some additional time in the healing waters. Le Grand Hôtel seemed more sanatorium than spa, with its ethereal inhabitants in search of cures for who knows what ailments.

The following morning we hit the road once again for the tiny principality nestled in a deep valley of the Pyrenees. If ever there were a spot that made me think of James Hilton’s spiritual yet slightly spooky novel, Lost Horizon, it is Andorra. No it is not Tibet – not even close – but there is something otherworldly and from another time about the place. Even some of its architecture reminded me of images of the red and white Potala Palace high in the Himalayas with its symmetrical square windows climbing up the hill. Intrepid travelers that we are, we decided to venture into this tiny country as a quick detour before we finally headed into Spain. How many people can say they’ve been to Andorra, after all? Tucked between the French and Spanish borders, Andorra is a cross between a brightly lit duty-free shopping mall and an outfitter extraordinaire, much like a Pyrenean Moab or Boulder. Its main industry is tourism and clearly the tourists come for inexpensive electronics, watches, perfume and liquor (there are no direct taxes in Andorra), as well as to ski, hike and rock climb. On our drive in, we wound through colossal, brightly colored, futuristic ski compounds sprawled across the valleys with architecture unlike anything we’d ever seen before. We ventured into a few outfitter shops in town and were amazed by the breadth and depth of the sporting goods they carried. One megastore had a huge 20 by 20 space devoted solely to rock-climbing. Who knew this sport required so much hardware? What added to the eerie, neither-here-nor-there aspect of the principality was the official language of Catalan. A romance language related to French, Spanish and Italian but altogether different, it was impossible for me to decipher. Catalan might as well have been Russian. But most people we met at our guesthouse and in shops and restaurants spoke at least some French, albeit with a thick accent. The gentleman who cut Joe’s hair (yes, he decided to get a haircut in Andorra – further to my earlier comment, we’ll certainly never meet anyone who’s had his or her hair cut in Andorra!) spoke Spanish, so we were able to communicate what Joe wanted done (the guy was a pro and actually needed no coaching). We learned that there are three types of schools in Andorra and apparently you go to wherever you are most comfortable culturally: Catalan, French or Spanish. Almost no one spoke English, which was fine with us, but the mixture of the other languages was a unique experience. We would say “Merci,” to someone and they would respond, “De nada,” in Spanish, but if we said, “Gracias,” they often came back with, “Merci à vous,” in French. As our waiter in a Tapas/Pizza restaurant explained in a mixture of Spanish and French, “We’re very international here.” We enjoyed our time in Andorra, even though the rainy weather made for a soggy three days and scuttled our plans for a hike in the Pyrenees, and managed to get a good sense of the country. We now head back down into France for six days in the town of Puylaurens to the east of Toulouse. We’ll have what will be our final taste of France for many months before we return next spring.

Pictures of our adventures: http://gapyeargirlgoestoeurope.shutterfly.com

Les Châteaux de Lastours: A Cathar Hike

The Cathars and their annihilation haunted me as we hiked up the steep, rocky spur above the village of Lastours. The bloodthirsty religious fervor of the Crusaders that drove these believers in a Christianity that differed from that of Rome is unthinkable. But of course, such fanaticism still exists in many corners of today’s world. How uncomplicated it must be to live your life with a set-in-stone, black and white worldview. It’s always seemed to me that those who live in a moral world of blacks and whites, with no grey areas or ambiguities in between, must find it easy to go through life, not questioning what is right and what is wrong – they simply follow an established dogma. But was it really what the Cathars believed that incited Rome to launch a crusade? More likely it was the loss of power and revenue and the valuable land owned by the Cathars that prompted Rome to destroy them. Black and white terrifies me. I much prefer gray.

The Châteaux de Lastours are actually four castles perched high in the foothills of the Montagne Noire, isolated by the deep surrounding valleys. Cabaret, Surdespine and la Tour Régine stand in line on a crest, while Quertinheux is on a slightly lower pinnacle nearby. The castles and the surrounding villages in the valley welcomed Cathars during the Albigensian crusade and thus were a target of the brutal Crusader leader, Simon de Montfort. I find it hard to say or even think his name without adding the epithet, “that sadistic bastard.”

It took us about a half hour to hike up the switchbacks and through an eerie cave to the chateaux. We spent a good hour scrambling from one rampart to the next and exploring the crumbling windows and towers of each castle. It was windy with just a bit of drizzle and the gloomy weather helped us imagine what life was like there long ago: difficult, cold, and under constant threat. The precipitous hike down may have been more difficult than the ascent and we were happy to have taken our walking sticks with us. Back in the car, we drove up to a promontory opposite the chateaux to a view point panoramique where we could take in the castles from across the valley. Just as with Carcassonne and impressionist paintings, the view from afar is the best and brings it all into focus. 

We had bread, cheese and a bottle of Sancerre in our room that night; it was good not to eat some form of duck for once. It really has amazed us just how much duck dominates the menu in southwest France: duck breast, duck rillettes, duck confit, duck gizzards, foie gras in all its many forms, stuffed duck’s neck, duck cassoulet and we even saw duck heart on one menu. Reading what a restaurant has to offer in this region is a bit like listening to Forrest Gump’s friend Bubba recite what you can do with shrimp. About a week after arriving in the Dordogne, I recalled what a nice guy from Toronto we met at the Paris flea market told us when we shared that we were headed this way. He and his fiancée had just left the southwest and he predicted, “I see duck in your future...I definitely see duck in your future.”

Pictures of our adventures: http://gapyeargirlgoestoeurope.shutterfly.com