Sud de France

It turns out that getting a hotel in Carcassonne was one of the best decisions we could have made.  The rain was cold and biting.  This is not what we had predicted for the south of France.  Even the words 'south of France' conjur up images of sunny harbours and bright blue skies.  Not so for us.  We sat in the McDonalds next to the train station with its free wifi and seriously had to rethink our plan to camp our way across Europe.  Our next destination was a town called Foix in the Pyrenee region, a place I was previously looking forward to visiting.  Ever since I had seen a program on the Cathar Way, with its chain of medieval castles perched on hilltops, I dreamed of hiking this section of France.  But for a moment, sitting at a French McDonalds, Kindle in one hand, french fries in the other, the weather report reading RAIN for the whole of the Pyrenee region--my dream was shifted east to the Riveria, where the sun was supposedly shining bright.  Our trip had instantiously changed.  We would be heading east.

Carcassonne itself was a lovely place, even in the rain.  By Carcassonne I mean the medieval town, encased in walls and towers, just outside of the real town.  If it weren't for all the tourists (who gave the town an unmistakable themepark feel) I could have envisioned the history of the place a whole lot better.  Windy cobblestone lanes, high parapets and arching doorways--medieval to the max.  I had to store these images in my brain so I could take them out and relish them at a time when 10,000 Asians weren't swiveling camera lenses around my face.  You know how that goes.

Snubbed and/or Put in Our Place

Now heading east, we came to Montpellier.  Desperately trying to stick to our camping plan, we elected a place outside of town.  This caused some problems, as we couldn't figure out how to actually get there from the main train station.  It was a lot of huffing and walking around in circles.  Finally we gave up and just got a taxi.

The campground gave this  illusion of luxury, even boosting private bathrooms on each site.  But after dealing with the unpleasant woman at reception, my opinion falls on the side of it being complete shit.  It had a pool, sure, but as soon as we envisioned slipping into its cool crisp waters, we discovered it cost 10 euros to enter.  Also the campsites were comprised of hard-packed sand.  Really really hard to drive pegs into.  And the washing-up centres were just embarassing, with their cobwebs and filthy sinks.  I would have told this to the woman at reception, but she probably would have spat in my eye.

Ok, so the lady at reception.  Up to this point in the trip we had tried to converse in French the best we could.  We found that most people were happy to switch to English after an interchange or two in French.  No problems.  But the language nazi at Pleine Aire de Chiens (or something like like) would have none of that.  We started off in French, and according to her, we were going to continue in French.  Because as she put forward to me, with her biting tone, "We are in France.  We speak French here."  I'm so glad she made that clear.  The bitch.

Chris and I had been having this little arguement.  I seemed a lot quicker than him at train stations and whatnot to ask a member in customer service, "Parlez-vous Anglais?"  I only did this when I needed an answer in English.  Otherwise it's pointless.  Yes the French love their language, yes it's a beautiful language, yes I can try to formulate a question or statement out of it, but if someone's giving me directions in this language, it's completely useless to me.  That's why I was asking the lady of the campsite if she spoke English, after a few interchanges in her own tongue.  We needed to know how  to get into town, as we were way out in the French boonies.  This information was crucial, not to be given in French and hand gestures.  But French and hand gestures it was.  So we were still clueless as to how to get into town.  Not even a map was given.  What a lovely lady.

We found ourselves camped next to some Canadians.  They suggested we meet for dinner at the cafe on the premises.  They seemed cool so we agreed.  Their names were Calab and Candidy (or something like that).  They had rented a car and were heading in the general direction we were.  I had elbowed Chris and suggested to him that if we played our cards right, we might be getting a lift to our next destination.  We did have a nice meal with them, drinking and talking into the night, but the next morning they packed up camp with just a wave goodbye and a take care.  So much for that idea.

We thought we had heard the word 'tram' spoken from the lips of Cruella at reception, so we ventured out in the hot sun to find this supposed thing.  We knew if we walked far enough, we would eventually find something.  And so we did.

We took a train, and then a bus to the Roman town of Arles.  There was some kind of festival going on.  Paella and sangria on the menus suggested that it was Spanish-themed.  There was a convivial feel to the whole thing, and at first we were excited to be there.  But we were soon to learn that it was a party that we weren't necessarily invited to.  We felt slightly out of place amongst the revelers.

After viewing the Parthenon-type arena and stopping a minute or two in a square, we decided it was high time to get something to drink.  Everyone everywhere was drinking and celebrating.  We finally picked a place, and were deliberately overlooked as everyone around us was served.  We hadn't even been acknowledged, let alone asked for our order.  The final straw was when the waiter leaned over Chris to ask a group (that had arrived after us) what they wanted to drink.  Chris and I abruptly rose and removed ourselves.  I have never experienced this type of snub before.

We wandered over to another restaurant, where we sat down and a man at the next table sniffed rudely in our direction and lit a cigarette--blowing smoke directly in our faces.  We removed ourselves promptly.  Another restaurant was tried, where there were few patrons and surely we couldn't be ignored.  There was hope as a waitress flew towards us, but we're accosted with a French query--are we to eat, or to drink?  To drink, I answered, wondering what her problem was and why she's using that tone with us.  Then she informed us (these kinds of people are so helpful) that restaurants are for eating, bars are for drinking.  So we remove ourselves once again.

We see a bar further down the way, called the American bar.  "They have to accept us here," I told Chris.  But still the service wasn't superb.  I felt that we had to grovel for a drink.

We sat and people watched for awhile as we drank from our plastic cups (wine in plastic cups is always classy).  We realized how well dressed everyone was.  Women were tripping along the cobblestone in their stiletto heels.  Also everyone was French.  We seemed the only English speakers in town (except for the American guy sitting nearby who was heavily drunk and shouting 'Ole' at passing pedestrians).  We had been clearly snubbed in Arles, for whatever reason.  It may have had something to do with Chris' Superman t-shirt.  We'll never know.  All I know is that I'm not likely to ever visit this area again.  It's so cliched to say that the French are snobbish.  They aren't all.  In fact I was quite shocked to see that some of them were.  Some may find this whole snob-thing charming (like my husband for instance) but I find it ridiculous.