South of France, Canal du Midi, Toulouse to Bezier

                            Quest for Caracssonne, Crepes, Coffee Ice Cream, Cassoulet and Croissants

In the dead of winter, when the sun does not rise until 10 in the morning and sets at 4, before you get home from work, we really needed something to look forward to. We planned a trip to the south of France in May. We decided to visit Carcassonne on the Canal du Midi.

I booked a canal boat called the Carcassonne, in Le Somail, France, the land of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. This should be good karma as our goal was Carcassonne.

May 24th we arrived at Toulouse and enjoyed the night as we walked the town square and the city came to life. Twinkle lights everywhere, dancers performing, with the ornate government building all lit up shining down on the square.

We had dinner and wandered the squares and back alleyways to the apartment. We ran into a waffle seller. These were waffles on steroids, he cooked the waffle and then sliced the ends open and inserted dark chocolate sticks into the waffle rows. Died and went to heaven!

The apartment was the quintessential french flat, windows overlooking the court below, flowers trailing over the facade, and one hell of a parking place. There were 3 gates, 3 keys and two key codes. Is this necessary?

Kirk managed to get the car in the garage, but just barely. Thank goodness we did not opt for the larger car, that is always a bad idea in Europe. These are not normal streets and we are in the Medieval section of Toulouse, roads wide enough for horses if not people only. As we drove to the flat we did many circles thinking the road we were suppose to take was actually a sidewalk when it was a road. The fact it was rush hour did not help.

We were hoping for crepes for breakfast since the restaurant at dinner had none. Pizza seems to be the dish of choice everywhere, seems odd. We had noticed a small cafe with crepes called Fi. We arrived and they asked us if we had reservation>%&*£(% that was a first. No, we did not so we would have to wait. Reservations at a coffee cafe. That is a first. We waited for a table, sat down and by then it was 11:00. They had run out of crepes. Foiled! Omelettes were delicious.

Le Somail was about a hour or so drive through the french countryside to get the canal boat. We arrived and had to change boats, the Carcassonne was not available so it was the Bordeaux for the week. Which was apropos regarding the amount of wine we part took of on the journey. Cest le vie, no Carcassonne or crepes today. As we loaded the bateau, some of the foodie types went shopping and I went in search of a coffee ice cream. This was going to be tricky. I managed last time in Paris to sort out ordering a latte by asking for a coffee creme but to add ice cream....Right next to the bateau there was a coffee shop and I tried my luck. It was not going well, the lady was older and verrrry french. Another woman next to me knew what I wanted and gave it a go. I got coffee, scoop of ice cream and ice cubes. I fished out the ice cubes and was very happy. There was also very beautiful impressionist painting of the canal on the walls of the cafe for sale.

The crew also decided that Carcassonne would not be on the list of ports of call. We would do it in the car later. This was not sounding good for a visit to Carcassonne.

The boat was delightful besides the fact that all waste was dumped directly into the canal. What a wonderful aroma, thank goodness it is spring and the poppies, lavender and all else is in full bloom and it is the beginning of the season. Some of the canal boats are so large you might as well have a Chateau, they certainly take their half out of the middle and were hotels or schools as we were to find out. I was hoping that maybe they also did not dump their crap in the cesspool we were drifting on. I have never washed my hands more during a cruise than this one. Every time I had to help dock it was off to the washroom. Stinky lines.

We headed east towards Beziers directly opposite direction of Carcassonne. No crepes yet. How could this be, we are in France. We were visited by a cat late one night, jumped on the boat and did a little walk about but found no food and Kirk was brave and knocked on the window to send it running.

The weather was chilly at best and liquid sunshine at worst. The clouds were rolling in off the french mountains. You could see the squalls coming hoping to dodge them as the rolled through. Kirk was accused of being British by a passing boater when he got the umbrella out driving the boat and carried on calmly. The umbrella was donated to the boat as we forgot to bring it home.

We staked the bateau away from the towns to have quite countryside evenings. With the bikes we could bike to town for dinner. At Colombiers were biked to a lovely Roman ruins that over looked interesting farm land. It forms a spiral which use to be a lake. They drained it to add more farm land. The evenings had beautiful flaming sunsets over looking the vineyards.

We were approaching the creperie/ galette and discovered it was closed on Sunday in Columbiers, foiled again. Had a wonderful goat cheese salad and Kirk had an omelet, not quit a crepe but would have to do.

We carried on to Beziers which has a stairway lock system. Locks stacked on top of each other, quit impressive. There was a tourist center and restaurant with a stunning view of Béziers. We went into the center of town which had nice cafes. Tried to order the ice cream coffee and got a very strong shot of expresso with ice., oops. The town was very run down, dark and dirty. The view looking across the river and up to the citadel was classic. Time to head the other direction.

Slowly drifting along at speedy 4 kilometres per hour. We were going so fast Emma easily beat us on the bike. Once we came around a bend and saw a winery sign saying free tasting. The crowd was ecstatic. Had many wines from the area. Minervois red was my favourite. We sat under the trees and tasted wine, mustard, olive paste to our hearts content over looking a beautiful vineyards with the Colombiers cathedral in the distance. Toured the old winery with barrels two stories tall. And walked away with many goodies.

Every town had a cathedral or castle so there was no want of things to tour. One cathedral had many beautiful chandeliers dripping crystals aligning the arches with sparkling stainglass windows towering overhead.

On our way back from Beziers we timed it just right to stop at the crepier. We arrived an 1/2 hour before they started serving the delightful savoury and sweet delicious crepes. We started with coffee creme and finished with crepes. Check Crepes off the list but we will have to have more.

We stopped back in Le Somail to top off the water and I tried for another ice cream coffee at the cafe and this time it was perfect. Now if I could only ad d decafe. This will take some doing.

One quintessential village after another. We got to know these by the cafes we ate at La Grillade du Chateau was by far out favorite. We stopped their coming and going. The salads were more than we could eat and the pizza was devine. We even had chickens running around to make sure the floor was kept clean. The waiter informed me that the chickens, unlike us, they had a reservation.

The countryside and flowers were amazing. We biked to a swimming lake and there was a small cafe where I got my perfect ice cream coffee with only a few snickers, but no ice.

We returned the bateau and headed for the Henri Toulouse LeTrac museum in Albi. We have a beautiful hilly drive through the country side. Was looking pretty bad for going to Carcassonne. The Letrac art had many of his Moulin Rouge posters and a lot of his earlier paintings and pastels. A highlight was the gardens of the museum overlooking the river and two ancient ponts(bridges).

Albi was full on in festival mode with many ariel balloons, dancers, choirs, concert performances all day long. We even got to endure a stereo typical rude french restaurant with a very rude loud french owner/waiter. An experience, when we did not understand what he was saying he just yelled the same thing louder. Kirk ordered the classic cassoulet, (white beans , duck and sausage stew) another item to check off the list.

It was now or never. The last day in town we decided to head off for Carcassonne! We made it. Incredible medieval cite built on top of Roman ruins that were built on top of other ruins no one has any idea of when it was founded. It was filled with your typical tourist, orderly Germans, self conscious British, glamorous Italians, quiet Japanese, enthusiastic Americans, all the children looked bored.

 We returned to Toulouse for our last night and had sushi to finish off the trip.

Headed back to london forgetting to have a crescent, oops guess I will have to return soon, there is nothing like a french crescent.

Au revoir

More photos:

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipN_F-8aVkrS-i-oJPCx1LhMJik0c2HgbNCDwIlxzE3wJQlgL7CdNRAQzdDF_gRHXw?key=LXJhN3E0UWN6MlpFTW0tRlgyUGJHOS1MMFUxSDN3