Monday, October 8th – Our Attempt at a Simple Day

Morning.  Wake up without an alarm clock.  Read for a couple hours.  Then to Leclerc to stock up on groceries, with a side trip to get more bread.  Lunch of soup and chips (for me, bread and fruit for Maxine).  A short nap.  Then, over to Cordes-sur-Ciel.

There’s a list of the 5 “most important” sights of the Midi-Pyrenees region of France.  One of them is to visit the hill town of Cordes.  This was my third visit there.  I’d been in 2000 by myself.  And in 2006 with Maxine and Cassie.  We had lunch in the square that day.  What I’ll remember most about the day, and the city, was walking through the streets afterwards with Cassie.  A dozen English school girls up ahead on a trip, also wandering with an adult guide.  Chattering away.  Until they saw Cassie and all stopped talking.  So, when I think of Cordes, I think “Cassie’s been there”…  Sad.  Here's a picture from back then:

 

It is a pretty city and more than worth going to if you’re anywhere in the area.  Some of the guidebooks say it’s an injustice that it is not considered the prettiest city in the country.  A hill town, a bastide town.  Souvenirs.  But also a truly interesting place to spend a few hours.  That, I warn you now, after walking up hill for 20 minutes to get there from the car parking!

 

Since we’re on a slower schedule, we stop for a drink.  A Pastis for me and a Kir for Maxine.  In total we spent 6E for both drinks, which is less than one ‘tourist’ drink was priced at.  We ‘get’ the admonition that when you travel you can live more cheaply if you do as the locals do.  They don’t order milk shakes or Coca-Cola’s.  We’ve learned our lesson.

Dinner at home.  Maxine prepares a salad and slices the roasted chicken we bought at Leclerc earlier in the day.  We polish off a half bottle of rose and then each have a glass of Gaillac red, “Le Grand Secret”, 2009, from La Bastide de Levis, a wine cooperative we’d been to a few days earlier.

Then an evening of reading, laundry, catching up on writing these, and watching part of Return of the Planet of the Apes (Tom) and episodes of The Good Wife (Maxine).  We love our iPads!