Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Visiting friends in the South of France

July 4th weekend I headed to the South of France to visit family friends. I jumped on a train Saturday morning and headed straight south to outside of Perpignan. The 5 hour train ride was really pretty and I got to see the different geography of France as I traveled South.

When I was younger Sally and her family lived next door and Sally was my babysitter. Through the years our families have stayed in touch and have seen each other over the years. We met Sally in 2000 in London and Sally and her mom, Sheila, have been back to New York. The other week I reached out to Sally to see if I could come down and as Sheila spends her summers in the South of France and Sally was just arriving, the timing worked perfectly!
London with Mom and Sally circa 2000

I was picked up at the train station and when I arrived at their home I was greeted by Sheila. We spent the afternoon at her house enjoying the hot weather and sitting by the pool. Sheila took me up to the mill to get bread for dinner and it was the cutest little bakery I have been to! Sally arrived later that night and we enjoyed one of the many delicious home cooked meals of the trip!

Sunday morning we headed to Peyrepertuse (Pierced Rock), a fortress and Cathar Castle located in the French Pyrénées. The fortress was built during the Middle Ages and dates back to the 11th century. The fortress is known as one of the Five Sons of Carcassone (which includes the five fortresses: Peyrepeturtuse, Queribus, Termes, Puilaurens and Aguilar) which were built to protect the French Border from Spanish invasion. These fortresses are built on the mountain ridges (Peyrepertuse is 800 meters above sea level) and were designed to blend into the rock making them difficult to see. From each fortress you can see two others in the distance allowing them to signal to each other in times of attack.
Peyrepertuse

While at the top, there was a bird spectacle where we got to see vultures, falcons, owls and a bald eagle (my little piece of the USA this July 4th weekend!). They allowed the birds to get quite close to the spectators, so as the vulture wandered around us I got a nice wing to the face!

We spent the rest of the day back at the house relaxing and catching up. Monday morning I had to catch my train back to Paris. The trip was short but it was so good to see Sally and Sheila! I had a wonderful time with them and hopefully I will see them both again soon, most likely on the other side of the Atlantic!

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