Friday 22nd July 2005 Into the Black Mountain

Müsli was available at breakfast & rather odd croissants with little butter content. We wandered off in the car up into the Black Mountain towards Arfons, the trees being a very attractive feature of the whole trip today. Then off to La Galaube, which turned out to have big dam & to St Denis, on the South fringes. There were two roads to Cuxac Cabardès & we took the D62, which had a good view towards the Pyrenees. We went up the main road for a bit & turned off to La Tourette, bizarrely placed in a steep sided valley, where I took several photos. Also at the larger Mas-Cabardès further down, which had strange rock formations. We soon turned left through Roquefère to LaBastide Esparbairenque, into which having driven, I had some trouble backing out! This did not look like what one understood by a bastide, being unwalled & on a steep hillside like many of the villages round here. We carried on to near the top of the mountain to join D112, which drops through the Gorge de l'Arnette, which had a series of derelict industrial buildings in the bed of the gorge, perhaps once water-powered. There was wool in evidence industrially but, despite a warning notice about sheep on the road, no visible sheep. We were soon in Mazamet, which I incorrectly remembered as grotty & had omelettes & coffee for lunch for E20.50 with tip, there being no sources of coffee on this morning's route. Then, we came back to Sorèze via Dourgne, easy driving for a change. We tried & failed to find the little supermarket.

Back at Vicky's, I edited the photos & we hung around reading until the news, which suggested that the London cops would soon round up all the guys who tried to plant bombs yesterday, a bunch of bumbling amateurs, although Al Qaeda were claiming responsibility. Why would they want to be associated with that lot? We left at 1920 for Revel in our car & had dinner in the Hotel du Midi on a rather pleasant sort of square. We ate in the garden behind &, while Vicky issued caveats about it sometimes not being as good as others, it was very good indeed. As I was driving, I only had one glass of wine. I'm not even sure what the starter was, as it had been 'prepared'. I followed it with a cassoulet, even though the weather is quite hot but as the local speciality, it had to be eaten! Good one, too. Avis had veal & Vicky, three sorts of fish. What with wine & puddings, it was still only E100, with 35c tip! There are some impressive avenues of trees around here & the Frogs have stopped cutting them down, as they now recognise that all the accidents are the fault of the drivers, not the trees. I joke that, as the Belgians are recognised as the worst drivers in Europe, watch out for parked Belgian cars, as they are the only ones that can knock you down when not moving. Looks like the French are catching them up. Bed late.