Sete

We arrived in Sete on market day. This was unfortunate as parking was as easy as trying to park at Russells Hall hospital after 9am! After driving around for what seemed like hours Helen spotted one and I attempted a bit of reverse parallel parking up a steep him. Now our plan for sete had been to pick up one of the little touristy trains and explore the town that way as it happened to be on, as pre-mentioned, quite a steep hill. Market day ruined these plans and we had to make do with a little gentle wonder. Sete is a sea town and therefore our plan for the afternoon was a sub boat. This had broken down the day before so we had to book onto a normal, above water boat tour.

Midday hit and as in all French towns everything shut for lunch. An attitude I really think the British should adopt. So we found a little seafood restaurant and me and Lukas ordered the seafood platter. It started with a little octopus pie (really tasty). I have to say I tried my best with the platter but my attempts were pathetic. The oysters and mussels were raw (a specialty of the area) and I could only manage one of the 12 huge oysters and 2 of the 12 mussels. I made a better attempt of the 24 prawns and even managed 5 sea snails. Thankfully Lukas was slightly less squeamish then me and kept going until his stomach threatened him.

The boat trip was only ok I have to say. It was again without English translation and although we caught some of what one of the guides was saying the other had such a thick accent we could only look in the direction the others were and guess and occasionally smile meekly when the others laughed.

Back at the campsite it was actually past wine o’clock so we got stuck in and made up for lost time. Here we mat Eric the hedgehog for the second time who has taking to raiding our rubbish bags for our leftovers (poor little guy, there tends not to be many).

We also had bought our first French pastry, an apple custard torte. It was nice and we decided to offer some to Mr. and Mrs. B as they had most kindly repegged our tent while we were out. We now feel we have some neighbors who like us so all is not lost. Anyway I’m off to Meze now so see you.

Carcassonne

So after the tent-shaking episode of the night before we were all feeling a bit unwanted and slightly on the glum side. It was 8 in the morning and we were up and ready for another day trip. To be honest simply leaving the campsite was a huge relief. But worry not, our daily dose of croissant soon cheered us all up and on to Carcassonne we went.

After driving around the new town of Carcassonne we managed to work our way up into the old walled city. Parked up we walked though the castle gates and it all felt very old medieval France. We had a wonder, had a drink (non-alcoholic of course due to the old sun yard arm thing) and found our self in a biscuit/sweet shop. I honestly don’t know how it happened but it did and we perhaps spent a little too long ogling. At 11 we made our way up to the castle for an hour-long lecture on 2,500 years of history. I conclude it was interesting. Our guide, Sebastian, was eccentric to say the least and just a little bit excitable. Due to this it was impossible to catch all of what he said. This was also due to the fact he consistently used the present sense. For 2,500 years of history this can become a little confusing. In fact, at one point after talking about his conversion with a long dead king, he suddenly exclaimed ‘I need water’. We all shuffled a little, felt confused, looked to other people for the answer. After a short silence a little voice piped up ‘I think Brian has some’ to which Brian started routing around in his rucksack. Sebastian, who couldn’t really understand our confusion, then had to point out he meant it for the moat.

After the talk we had some lunch. I had cuttlefish. It was very nice but quite rich and think it may not have agreed with me completely. In fact I may have had a little case of South of France Belly Dance.

The afternoon was predictably hot so Helen and I headed to a couple of museums while Lukas wondered around the castle grounds some more. The first museum was a torture museum. It would make even the strongest of stomachs turn and as you may remember mine was not at its best. Still it never fails to amaze me how evil one person can be to another. At the end of the museum they had a little note on the wall asking us to remember that torture unfortunately does not remain in the past and still exists in our society today. And while the socialist in me would have had them name and shame the governments I was somewhat pleasantly surprised at the little thought provoking sentence.

The second museum wasn’t technically a museum. Ok, it was a haunted house. But a very good one. The doors worked on an automatic system so you were effectively trapped in each room until they had scared you efficiently. The rooms were often pitch black and in some of the rooms a French man or two lurked in a black robe. And oh they were quiet, that is until they growled. Helen and me jumped and screamed and laughed our way round.

I'm single and I'm 24

Sunday and Monday we decided to have rest days after the two-day trips. Dominic, our wine tour guide from Thursday had made a prediction of rain for Sunday. Something to do with the mountains visibility. We think he just looked at the weather forecast. Anyway it looked set to come true. Gloomy and cloudy and to add to it the first day we got in trouble. Let me first describe our neighbors. We have named them all but as you may find out the names are not all that imaginative. There is Mr. and Mrs. Belgium who have roped off their area but also lent us a hammer on the first day so we are going with liking them. Then there is Mr. and Mrs. pirate. They have a pirate flag outside their tent. Seem nice enough and the flag is useful for the drunken staggerings. Then there are Mr. and Mrs. hippy, again nice enough and they just appear hippy like. Next we have Mr. and Mrs. French. They put in the first complaint about us because our pitch was too messy for their liking. I’m not sure it had anything to do with the growing pile of empty win um I’m mean lemonade bottles we had. Lastly there is family caravan. On Monday night we breached quite time for the first time since our arrival by about ten minutes. Now, to be fair it was a bit of an argument but Mr. caravan took it upon himself to violently shake our tent until we were beat to his submission. Very rude me thinks.

Now back to the security guards. Mr. and Mrs. French had actually told on us. Mr. guard dog himself came and told me and Lukas off like we were naughty school kids. Later they told me off for speeding (15km/hr) and at one point we saw one of them lovingly hosing down their speed bump. Power hungry to say the least.

Sunday night we went for a meal at the campsite restaurant. We ran into a couple of English girls there who were a little bit on the rowdy side. It was one of their birthdays so we agreed to join them for a drink. Speaking English was enough for them to like us. After dinner we headed over to the bar where we were forced to order some over-priced cocktails. Now for some reason their cocktail was named fun on the beach compared to the English equivalent. Paul the eurocamp guide was at the bar so I decided to pose this question to him. Something along the lines of why he didn’t have sex on the beach and I may have added another English cocktail into the mix. Paul has two pre-emptive answers to any question by day – “I can fix anything” by night “I’m single and I’m 24”. Made my question rather awkward but I asked it all the same.

Montpellier

Our first impressions of Montpellier were not especially good ones. The town on arrival appeared a bit concrete jungle like. The little park we walked through to find L'office de tourisme was quiet and a little littered including broken glass. It was like being at the aftermath of a party that we were not invited to. But lo and behold we hit the main square and the city did buzz. We promptly booked ourselves on a walking tour of the old part of the city and stopped of for a drink while we were waiting to soak in the atmosphere. The tour was good. Montpellier is the gay capital of the south of France and our tour guide did not disappoint. He did the tour in French but we had audio guides to translate him.

Highlights were an underground bath for Jewish ladies in particular to go when having a dirty time of the month etc. Also the replica of the arc de triomph, which we climbed. It was only 90 steps so the view was worth the effort.

Lunch was in a little square our tour guide had directed us to off the main tourist route. We were a little late for the apparently strict 12 - 2 lunch hours. It was a nice lunch, however the maitre de seemed a tad on the grumpy side, especially on the question of whether we wanted coffee or not. Although we had already answered no twice he had to insist a 3rd time as he wanted to turn the machine off.

On return to the campsite it was wine o'clock. This is a very important time that, a bit like Easter changes every time. Wine o'clock is whenever and usually as soon as we arrive back onto the campsite. Later in the evening Lukas and I decided to go for a late night dip in the sea, while still drinking wine. Seems safe I think!

Lions and Ostriches and Bears. Oh my!

Friday we decided to head on to Narbonne. On route there happened to be an African Safari Park and I honestly believe no one could resist. The one big difference between it and an English safari park is the naughty animal (their has to be one) was not the monkeys but the ostriches. The French had broken all the rules and decided to feed them so as the approached our car and as we had nothing for them to eat (we'd agreed it was unfair to feed them Lukas) we applied caution and kept our windows mainly closed. Of course this does not stop the crafty beggars and I'm afraid mum's side mirror took a bit of a bashing. Once we managed to escape we saw many other animals who managed to behave themselves. After this we drove through the black bear enclosure. On the entrance we were advised to keep our windows closed and warned it may not be wise to leave our vehicles and have a little stroll. Advice I'm rather glad Helen was given as they were rather cute and giving them a big bear hug was hard to resist. We resisted. Next came the Lion Park. Now I know I can moan about English drivers especially the ones who cut you up but when a lioness wanders in front of your car I decided it was beat to leave the road rage behind. Especially as her friends were lurking on the sideline. The only draw back to seeing these animals was we had not yet discovered the aircon function in mum’s car so in 30-degree heat we had ourselves a little sauna going on. Never mind - you should feel our skin now. There was a bit of a normal walking zoo attached and I decided to test the safety functions. We wondered into the alligator house (and that was the only animal named above the door) and after peering for 5 minutes concentrating on spotting one I turned around to another glass cage I was unaware of that just happened to have a huge snake in. Impressive. It took seconds for the ranger to run in after my hysterical scream. I shamefully shuffled along past him mumbling something about le serpent with Helen and Lukas smirking in the background.

We left shortly after and drove to Narbonne. Again another impressive French town. Our first stop was lunch and I partook in some moule frites. And I enjoyed my moule frites very much. After a big lunch and a bottle of the good stuff we took our time exploring Narbonne - a couple of museums and of course the cathedral. The cathedral was impressive. There was huge organ pipes playing and if you squinted upwards we spotted a little French man playing them. The gardens contained some statues and wait for it..... (sci-fi mention 4) a female statue covering her eyes. We didn't blink, just to be on the safe side. It is amazing how we are still alive!

Before leaving we stopped off at a nice little bar by the river for a couple of glasses of - would you believe me if I said lemonade? Ah well. It was nice chilled lemonade so we had a few!

Wine and Sea food tour - day 7

rsday arrived and we woke up early to join Dominic, an ex-pat who set up a wine touring business. We were booked onto the wine and seafood tour. Here I will take another aside just to mention the campsite is lovely. Just thought you needed to know that. It is very large so it contains its own shop, hairdressers, bakers, butchers, bars, restaurants, 2 pools, the beach, a naked spa, fishmongers and security guards to name a few. More said on the security team later.

Anyway back to the tour and some other human company. Our group was made up of the three of us, Dominic, an Australian couple and two Canadian friends. Our first stop was the Seafood part. This was what appeared to be an oyster and muscle farm. It was fascinating to learn the history. We watched one of the workers open a massive oyster like he was cutting through butter. The lady opening the raw muscles looked no older then 60 was actually 82. She proudly puts this down to eating 6 oysters and six muscles raw every day. Take that 6 eggs! Sorry private joke. Anyway then it was our turn to try the raw fish and being a relatively new fish eater I’m not going to lie but I felt a bit nauseous! Anyway I felt at this point that I had to participate especially sine I had already annoyed Dominic by admitting to the €1.50 Bordeaux. It was an experience I’ll tell you that. We also seemed to be joined by a random Spanish couple that couldn’t speak French or English. Luckily one of the Canadian women was of Cuban origin and was able to translate. The Spanish chap was overly enthusiastic in a slightly creepy way so I think we were all ever so slightly relieved when we were able to leave for the wine section.

We were driven to a little vineyard, given some facts about wine production and then were given several generous tasters of very nice wine, including one that was halfway through the fermentation stage.

Slightly merry and after some political discussions with Dominic and some general chatting with the others we were driven back to the campsite and made our way to the pool. Again another hot day that maybe could have effected Lukas more then we thought as he very nearly bought a copy of the Daily Mail. Shudder.

Hey who turned out the lights

The next day demanded a late start. I decided to mosey on down to the campsite bar and have a few post breakfast (therefore allowed) pre lunch beers. After lunch Lukas and me decided to attempt Beziers again. We visited a few museums, which were ok, but it was the afternoon so was hot, hot, and hot. Due to Lukas being made out of steel he decided to go for a 3rd museum whereas I decided it was time to rehydrate. I found a nice little bar ordered a diet coke and happily started people watching. This may seem a perfect little scene if it weren't for an evil and I swear it was evil decided to shit on me. Nice. I then sat drinking my diet coke, covered in pigeon shit, waiting Lukas's return. He however had a nice time if not a little strange when he came across a didgeridoo playing French man. In the mean time Helen had decided to make use of the proximity of the beach and off she trotted with our newly purchased beach umbrella. However Helen did not factor in the wind of the med. She thought she had dug the umbrella deep enough into the sand but quickly realized when it was hurtling towards a German mans crotch that maybe it was not that secure. Luckily he seemed to see the funny side of it. Maybe he was in shock!

Now due to drinking a fair bit of warm beer Lukas and me decided to search for an electrical element for our cool box. We needed an out-y one and we had an in-y one. This search proved more difficult then when originally thought it would be and we search all sort of shops including GIFI - the French version of Wilkinsons. But eventually after a few hours searching we found the damned thing. There was much cheering and we celebrated with drinking some wine. Seemed appropriate.

Oh and to refer to my title. Lukas ventured on over to the toilet block and being slightly weary of the midwich episode the night before was mid pee when he was thrown into total blackness. And (sci-fi scare 3) could only exclaim Hey, who turned out the lights!