Languedoc Outings

Our journeys have not stopped since our arrival back to Montlaur, on Tuesday we headed to a manmade lake/beach near the castle called Carcassonne Plage. A great spot for the kids on a hot day and had a lovely afternoon.Wednesday...(not a school day) headed to another Cathar castle called Peyrepertuse. This perches perilously on a mountain clifftop and is impressive with incredible views. We picked up a young english hitchhiker ( Adam) on our way who was excellent company...he had not planned to, but joined us to the castle ruins....as with Montsegur a rugged climb involved to the castle...but worth it to be awed at the summit. Had a picnic lunch but a very hot day. Adam a Wwoof ( worker on organic farms) knew of a nearby village with a geothermal pool adjacent to the river.....how could we resist. Half an hour later the kids were stripped off and we were soaking our feet in 40 degress celcius at Rennes Le Bain....magic after a mountain climb.

Friday, Maya also had a school free day and so headed to an African Safari park about an hour away towards to coast. I had never been to a drive through Safari park and it was incredibly good. Can't believe at 40 years I have only just seen the largest land animal on earth as my first african elephant encounter.. After this went for a cool off at the nearby Narbonne Plage which is out closest beach to home. We were all surprised at how good this spot was as well...will have to return here.

Last night Montlaur had a Music party and of course had to head there....lots of locals and local wine and food....every imaginible French cliche here from berets to piano accordions...tres francaise.....

Today...Vide Grenier Sunday...this time at our local town Trebes....bought a few trinkets and some Jesus Junk.....can't resist! Tomorrow John is off to work after his leave... I am driving to back to Spain to pick up Roger from Girona. Looking forward to seeing him and he is staying the week before returning to Frankfurt.....

Well I think that is about enough for now....I do not think I will have so much to say next time...you will probably be glad of that...

Italy to Spain

From Venice it was time to catch our bus to the airport and catch our flight to Girona Spain where John was meeting us with the children. As we boarded our flight we both agreed how fortunate we had been to share this time and how seamless the journey had gone. John picked us up and had found an excellent hotel for us on the Costa Brava beach Llorett, just out of Girona....well done .....It was across the road from the beach with great views, had a family room and took dogs....sweet!
We were all up early the next day and headed to the train station to take a train to Barcelona.....did the greatest hits of Barcelona including the Los Ramblas, and the open air double decker bus tour of the city. Had lunch - paella, of course - in front of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia, and then visited Gaudi's Park Guell which is full of modern mosiacs and although crude when compared to Byzantine works, the use of colour and form is outstanding. Barcelona was tremendous and a place I shall have to return to one day to explore further.

Left Llorett the next day and headed back to France. Stopped at the very picturesques Spainish fishing village Cadaques on the coast for lunch...thanks Roger for the recommendation here. Had lunch at a restaurnat on the beach and the kids had a swim....lovely spot. Then it was home to Carcassone.

What a trip my head is full of new knowledge and inspiration, can't wait to chip away at something again soon.

Thank you John for encouraging and insisting I do this course. I think it has to be one of the best weeks of my life.

Ravenna and Venice

Denise has just returned from the most amazing 2 weeks on what has turned out to be a mosaics tour of Europe.

The following is from her 'newsy' e-mail:

As predicted June 6th did deliver summer to the region of the Languedoc/ Rousillion, this was gratefully received and so far the sun and heat has stayed. On the 8th I headed to Italy. Travelling on a budget airline is an adventure itself and required a 4 hour stopover in London. I arrived late into Forly airport and a long and expensive taxi to Ravenna.

Ravenna is beautiful and as expected the mosaics capital of Italy, I had 2 days to relax before the course started and so made the most of it. On Saturday I toured all the cathedrals and mosaic sights. This was breathtaking and raised the pulse for a mosaics enthusiast, I could not believe that I would be recreating some of these works in the same manner of artists of the 5-6th centuries in a few days time. Ravenna is quite a small centre and a day is all that is required to view the art and window shop...eye candy was all that the budget would allow. I was also informed and surprised to learn that it is right next to the coast and the adriatic sea. The tourist information I had researched was so full of information relating to art that they had neglected to mention this....I had not brought my togs!....thank goodness board shorts are in! Sunday took the bus with loads of teenage Italians to the beach...great value 1.50 euro return.....found a gorgeous spot and hired my deck chair and umbrella for the day....lots of eye candy here.....board shorts certainly not in the wardrobes of any of the suntanned and lithe Italians on the Adriatic.

On Monday the course started.....how exciting, met the team of artists and teachers and they were welcoming and generous with their knowledge and help. There were seven of us on the course. All girls ranging from 25years to 65 years, and from New Zealand, South Africa, Australia, Italy and the US. We were to discover that the differences in age, language and culture were absolutely inconsequential, as we worked together ate and played together our common interest linking us all. We fortunately worked at steady and similar levels of competence and were apparently one of the few classes to complete the programme on time and together.

The studio we worked in was amazing, the works about us incredible, I took so many photos I filled my camera and Kayleannes cameras memory cards. Luciana Noturni leads the studio and has over 40 years of mosaic experience, both in creating mosaic art and in mosiac restoration...she was involved in the restoration of mosaics from a 2000year old Roman palace found in Ravenna whilst excavating to build a carpark...what a career! She and her team were incredibly generous with information on technique, supplies and photographs etc from their studio...they were also lots of fun. The technique we learned is the Byzantine technique ...used by artists of this time. For this we use a hammer and hardie to cut the small pieces called tesserae from glass smalti, marble and stone...I am pleased to say my fingertips are still intact.

The hardest part was choosing what piece to work on for the week. These choices are all from historical pieces and I choose the 'Waves or Current" from the Mauseo Galla Placidia in Ravenna. I was very pleased with the outcome, and as my own small orginal piece created a small Cathar cross, to reflect our interest and life in the Cathar region of France.

On Wednesday Kayleanne arrived into Ravenna and took advantage of this opportunity to explore some of Italy....the art, food, beaches and shops. At the close of the course on Friday we took the train and headed to Venice.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh Venice...what can I say ...we arrived and very easily found a hotel not far from the train station. This suited us as we only had 24hours to explore this fabulose city. Dropped our bags and our arrival was heralded by an electrical storm over the city. Fortunately this did not last, and we were able to start our exploration of the labyrinth of canals to St Marks Square. It took us several hours and arrived into the square as twilight was approaching. I have been before but had forgotten how breathtaking this spot on earth is...............We returned the next morning to tour St Marks Cathedral. This has the largest collection of Byzantine mosaics as the whole catherdral is covered as opposed to the apse only which is found in most cathedrals including those in Ravenna...the ambiance lost a little with all the crowds here and so purchased the book and moved on. The shops in Venice did not disappoint and surprisingly affordable for many things.....

More from the Clouds on Montsegur

Travelling Around

Below are 'spell-checked' excerpts from Denise's newsy e-mails.

(Denise is currently away to Ravenna, Italy -

for an intensive mosaics course

- so look out for news of that in a few weeks.

John is on leave so look out for not much news there!!!)

"Well it has been another wonderful week here in the South of France. There are of course the negatives...weather 80% cold and wet at present, and found two enormous scorpions in the house this week.....which gave us all a scare...luckily John home for the extermination both times, and also that Air New Zealand has very solid shoes as part of the uniform. I am sorry but jandals or slippers will not suffice for this task. As he is away (in good old kiwi fashion) I have a large 4 by 2 plank at the door.

In regard to the weather ....locals inform me that this always comes right on the 6th June ( AND IT HAS - YIPPEE!) so I have my sundress and factor 30 ready .....

Did meet our local real estate lady this week ...Sam and exchanged books for DVD's so have started our own informal library. She lives on the way to the next village and shares her site with one of the largest wine producers in the region...very handy.

We all took a day trip to one of the most slendid and spectacular Cathar castle ruins in the region, Montsegur. This 12th century fortress was the last safe haven for the Cathars in the Albigensian Holy War , of the Catholic Church against the Cathar heretics. It ended with the burning of 200 martyrs, which pretty much ended the Cathar faith. Pretty grim stuff!

The castle is about 1 1/2 hours away and the weather was a bit marginal, but we had taken Maya out of school for the day and decided to go for it. The region was gorgeous right into the Catalan mountains, and very alpine with a lot of forest. Beautiful.

We passed the 'Rennes le chateau' which is famous for the Priest Sauniere (the Da Vinci Code) and his mysterious rumoured involvement with The Knights Templar and the Priory of Scion, as well as his renovations of the Church of Mary Magdalene in this village in the late 1800's. This village is gorgeous and we will return to explore this further on another trip.

On arrival to the site of Montsegur some 3000 ft above sea level, we could not actually see the castle as shrouded by cloud. Unlike most modern day tourist attractions these days, we actually had to walk up the mountain to the castle...I can understand now why the Cathars built here as this is not an easy climb...there are no nice tidy steps up this mountain...and some areas just rocks. Add 4 days rain, mud and a 2 and 4 year old and you may start to get the picture. Glad to have left the scotty dog with low under carriage in the car. Luckily we had another set of hands as Kayleanne with us, phew! and also lucky at the ticket booth half way up the mountain lollipops provided for children.

The climb took about 20minutes...but worth it. We were the only people there and the whole castle was enveloped with cloud and mist.Although no view of the countryside below it was truely mysterious, and errie, and when looking out the ruins of windows or doors looked out into the heavenly oblivion of cloud....could almost hear and feel the matyred souls amongst us.

It started to rain on the way down ...another 20mins, but we were too awed and invigorated to care. A great day.

John left us for London and LA the next day....and sadly did not take the weather with him....................

On Saturday Kayleanne, the kids and I headed for an Australian Animal park near Caracassonne, we have found that many of these local attractions do not open until after 2pm, which was the case here. A little difficult when you have a child that is grizzly and requires an afternoon nap at this time. So instead headed to a local park and then decided to go to the Castle and Citadel for a cassoulet lunch and wander around which did not disappoint.

Sunday aka "Vide Grenier day" was in fact SUN day, and weather hot and gorgeous. The market was in the Minervois, a small region north of the Aude, in a village called Siran Minervois. It was very touristy, with several busloads of english speakers about, hence the price of everything was very high- which we had not previously experienced.

The village was lovely with a very high end hotel and an old chateau, across from this is a modern amphitheatre, where we had our picnic lunch and the kids enjoyed a run around, drank local wine, enjoyed the sun. Headed away and drove through Trause Minervois where one of the English women we recently met lives- very nice. And then to a large village called Caunes Minervois. There was a gourmet and arts festival and so of course we had to stop.....was very buzzy and saw some inspiring garden art. This village backs onto a mountain range called the 'La Montagne Noire" did manage to loose myself a little in the forest on the way out, but worth it for the scenery.

I have decided that the word 'Minervois" in french must mean "residence or holiday home of wealthy english speaking person over 50 " as this area dominated by this demographic group. I think this term could be applied outside of France.....Lake Taupo Minervois, Wanaka Minervois, Sunshine Coast Minervois, Florida Minervois..etc...etc

The rest of the week filled up with the routine of life, Maya's school, horse riding in Ginestas, drives to airport etc...

Tomorrow I am off to Ravenna Italy to do the mosaics course I have been hoping to do for several years. Can't wait. Kayleanne is coming to Ravenna on Wedneday. On Friday we have a night in Venice and then fly to Girona where John and the kids will meet us and we will spend the next couple of days doing Barcelona...so will have lots of news and stories after this..