Medieval Times

Bonjour.
Still in France but through the magic of WiFi, I've been able to keep up with most of your blog posts. So before I get to moi, I want to send out good wishes to those of you running Fargo this weekend: Beth, AmyBee, Nat, and ShirleyPerly. Also to Marlene in Canada, running her fifth half-marathon and maybe setting a PR. I'd also like to bring to your attention that Danielle ran the Boston Marathon this year and wrote a great post about it.

This week was a journey through the middle ages. It's kind of a blur, really. We are in Olonzac, a town in Languedoc-Roussillon region of southwest France. It feels more like Spain than France though, with tile roofs and dry weather. Sometimes it felt like we were still in California! But those snow-capped mountains were the Pyrenees, not the Sierra Nevada's, and that ocean I dipped my tootsies into was the Mediterranean, not the Pacific.

We took many day trips from Olonzac, to towns that were built centuries ago. One of the best was Carcassonne. It was like strolling through Disneyland, it was that picture-perfect. Only it was real. I don't have time to go into detail about it, but you can click on the link to learn more.

Another town that was a surprise to us was Mirepoix. We went there today and stumbled into a town square that dates back to 1290. Stores in France close for lunch from 12 til 2:30, and that's when we happened to arrive, so we found a nice restaurant and had lunch. Afterward we walked into the church of Saint Maurice, a Gothic style church in serious need of renovation, but which houses a massive pipe organ. We were lucky enough to arrive when someone was playing it, probably rehearsing for a concert. If you're a cook, you may be familiar with the term mirepoix. It turns out that the sauce which is made with a mirepoix (a combination of celery, carrots and onions) was named for the Duke of Mirepoix in the 18th century.

Near to Olonzac is the Canal du Midi. It was dredged during the 1600s and provides a waterway between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Horses were used to tow the barges and the remnants of that tow path is now a bike path. It's unpaved and pretty rough but good enough to run on, which I did--twice. The highway's here have no shoulder so it was much safer to risk a twisted ankle than a collision with a fast moving vehicle. SD found a quiet road to walk on and I used that today. It turned into a dirt road, a tractor road, and I was enjoying running through the vineyards when it occurred to me I might be running on private property so I turned around and stayed on the asphalt. I barely made it 6 miles, but I rewarded myself with un croissant au beurre and a grand cafe creme. I ended all my runs that way and enjoyed sitting at the Cafe de la Poste, watching the town go by. Just like home. :-)