France and...

I will start with where we are instead of going through our trip to Heidelberg, (delightful with grandchildren and trips through the beautiful German countryside and schnitzel to die for) and Sommierres, a small village in the Languedoc close to Nimes, where we stayed in a fourteenth century renovated villa and a gray cat adopted us--(French cats eat camembert, yogurt, pate and cured sausage)--I won't go into how many wonderful meals we've had or how much delicious wine we've drunk...

Today we arrived in Ceret, (apparently a day early which seems to be our pattern since traveling in France--luckily both places were able to accommodate our inability to read our own itinerary). It was the last exit on the A9 in France and Barcelona is 178 kilometers away. We are staying in a modern apartment on the 3rd floor, overlooking a square and beyond the buildings on the other side lie the magnificent Pyrenees mountains. According to what we've read, this area is filled with many nationalities. Here's a picture of the street where our apartment is: the sycamores must be close to 100ft. tall!

Around here the Cathars once thrived--a religious sect who were completely wiped out in the 13th century by the Catholic church. There are several ruins around here that we plan to visit. They regarded men and women as equals, believed in reincarnation and were vegetarians.(more on this in future posts). The city of Carcassonne is not far from here, and I found out today that the Celts were one of the early settlers there.

Tomorrow after we've explored a bit more I will go into more detail, but for tonight I say Bon Nuit.