Some people were sure we were crazy and often, in the midst of all the insanity of an international move, we agreed. But at last our goal was just hours away. All aboard – for the last stage of the road to a new life in the south of France...
(for those who missed the opening, part 1 can be read here)
(for those who missed the opening, part 1 can be read here)
We awoke in the splendor of the art-deco room in the hotel Aletti Palace.
Our pets had slept as well as we, stretched across the bottom of the wide bed, on the protective cover we had draped there before falling off the cliff of exhaustion into oblivious slumber. There was the memory of the elegant room-service candlelit dinner we’d shared the night before that still made me sure I had dreamt it. We rose, refreshed, invigorated, and filled with excitement. Now, before breakfast arrived, it was time for a quick walk with the dog and cat.
Outside, morning glowed on the stately buildings of Vichy. The colors of autumn were illuminated by soft sunlight. But this was a business walk and so we could not tarry. Once attended to, it was straight back indoors. Soon we had replenished our energy with scrambled eggs as well as the traditional French breakfast. The juice, baguettes, croissants, with strong, hot coffee tasted like manna from heaven.
There was no time to waste – the road was calling. So with renewed determination to keep up with our fellow drivers, we rejoined the Auto-route. This time, my husband joined in with the overtaking in a manic abandon. I remarked to myself, as I gripped the map with some trepidation, that he was going to make a splendid French driver.
As we joined the A75, the clouds returned and shortly, a light rain. Then, with numerous warnings from flashing information signs, the traffic slowed down. The pace dropped to a crawl. Every now and then, we came to a stop.
Men in reflective rain capes were shepherding us down a wiggly bit of road. Below, a silver filament threaded the base of the hills. It was the Tarn River. In the misty valley, huge cranes swung gigantic loads of steel and we could see a line of tall towers covered in scaffolding. On these, the busy workforce looked as small as ants. We descended to the heart of the action. Here, workers hurried along the roadside, and sometimes crossed it without so much as a by-your-leave look at us. They knew we weren’t going anywhere fast that day.
Through our closed windows, came the sound of creation on an epic scale. Here, in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, something huge was going on. Just over a year later, we would see the inauguration on TV and realize that we had driven around the legs of what was to become the tallest bridge in the world, le Viaduc de Millau.
Once past the construction site, the traffic resumed its break-neck speed and then the road divided left and right as we arrived at the foot of France. The majority of the traffic went left on the A750. They were off to Marseilles and beyond where you will find Provence, Monte Carlo, Nice, and all the ritzy playgrounds of the well-heeled rich. We stuck with the A75 to the right which curved down to Beziers. It was well past noon by then. We were hungry but a drive around the town offered us no central places to park. With both our pets and the bags in the car, we didn’t want to leave them to explore.
A few minutes later we were back on the motorway, now the A9, which has the lovely name of "La Catalane". There we spied a rest-stop with a restaurant whose appearance reminded me of Pizza Hut. It was a "Courtpaille" (Short Straw) a chain of restaurants famous for serving grilled foods. The first one opened in 1961 and was in a round building with a peaked straw roof. Though these days the roofs are tiled, the distinctive design remains the same and makes them easy to spot all over France. Here, we were served a sumptuous mixed salad that was so French is was dotted with warm goat's cheese. This is not a cheese that we care for, but we were so darned glad to be having our first really French meal, that we ate it all... well... I ate all of mine: my husband hid most of his cheese under the last of the lettuce leaves!
Another hour and we flew past Narbonne. The afternoon sun suddenly burst through the clouds and threw long pink beams of light across the vista. Now the Med sparkled off to our left. Ahead of us we saw what we had been longing for – the chain of the Albères Mountains, her arms open wide, beckoning us and bidding us a welcome home. Just beyond Fitou and we cheered at the sign “department des Pyrénées Orientales.” The fatigue just melted away.
Fast forward. Perpignan flashed by. Like a bee to a flower, my husband directed our car to the coastal town of Argelès-sur-Mer. Suddenly we were parked just a few hundred meters from the sea and our pets felt the soft sand between their paws for the first time. We rang the bell and our friends met us with hugs, tears, and large glasses of wine.
Our dog was pleased to meet their dogs. (The cat not so much – he decided to stay in the car!) Soon, we were enjoying dinner in their salon with the terrace doors open on a strangely balmy evening at the end of October. Our host delighted us with her Cordon Bleu standard of three courses of simple, yet divine food. To describe it as a salad, pasta, and a dessert gives no impression of how delightful the meal was. I realized that our lives had just changed.
The scent of pine trees wafted in from the open terrace doors, there was the murmuring sound of French conversations from those who walked along the beach path, and beyond that I could hear the gentle lap of the Mediterranean Sea on the shore…Welcome to France!
We were home.
And so the long journey was done and we began the next stage in our happy lives together. Our dreams blossomed into an amazing reality. My husband and I enjoyed every moment of our life together in France. Although I had worked as a teacher, my other passion was writing poetry and telling stories. He encouraged me to achieve my own dream of writing in a more serious way.
Over a hundred articles later and two books in, I told him I should finally get started on a personal blog to share some of our adventures in a way that all of our readers, family members, and friends could enjoy more than the occasional email. We outlined what those blogs would be like and the seeds for this story were sown.
But life was so much fun, that the writing was always only secondary to the enjoyment of the everyday. After the fourth book was published, I wrote several drafts of this series, always meaning to put it online and never quite getting around to it.
Mid-way through the last year, we were told that an aggressive cancer meant that he only had a very short time left. We finished this series and outlined other books and series. While we worked on this one, “Nous Sommes Fous” we reminisced about all the wonderful things we had seen and done with our life here in France. It had been a time without regrets and one day as we sat editing these blog posts, he said to me,
Over a hundred articles later and two books in, I told him I should finally get started on a personal blog to share some of our adventures in a way that all of our readers, family members, and friends could enjoy more than the occasional email. We outlined what those blogs would be like and the seeds for this story were sown.
But life was so much fun, that the writing was always only secondary to the enjoyment of the everyday. After the fourth book was published, I wrote several drafts of this series, always meaning to put it online and never quite getting around to it.
Mid-way through the last year, we were told that an aggressive cancer meant that he only had a very short time left. We finished this series and outlined other books and series. While we worked on this one, “Nous Sommes Fous” we reminisced about all the wonderful things we had seen and done with our life here in France. It had been a time without regrets and one day as we sat editing these blog posts, he said to me,
“So you see, not so crazy after all!”
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