Sorèze Trip - July 21st 2005 - Getting there

Sorèze is a village near Revel in the Languedoc, unfortunately placed at the end of The Black Mountain, a range running West-East north of Carcassonne, so it was sacked frequently in medieval times. Our friend Vicky has a very old house in the village, which probably dates from around 1200.

Index to this trip

22-7-2005 Into the Black Mountain
23-78-2005 Sorèze and Revel
24-7-2005 A mini-Ken Ancestor Trip to L'Isle Jourdain, Beaumont & Savènes
25-7-2005 St Ferreol & Durfort
26-7-2005 Narbonne, Gruissan & Narbonne Plage, Cuq Tulsa
27-7-2005 Revel Cathedral

Thursday 21st July 2005 To Sorèze

I rather miscalculated getting-up time & Avis got up earlier anyway, so we had our usual fruit-&-müsli breakfast in comfort & we got to Stansted at about 0830, giving us time to buy a paper before joining the queue to check in. This was accomplished by 0930, as Ryanair proved themselves much more efficient than British Airways at Gatwick last month. We had bacon & eggs in Garfunkles (£13.50 with tip), again at our leisure, bought Vicky some chocolates, mostly plain as she does not do milk, before going to the lounge. The 'plane was somewhat late, so there was much hanging around, during which I talked to an oven-ready girl (i.e. obese) who had spent a year at Neustadt-an-der-Weinstrasse. On the 'plane, the girl next to me worked for Hilary Benn's ministry & was reading a paper about the effect on the poor of the tripling of fuel prices in the Yemen. She had a share of a house in Souliac & was going for a long weekend.

Efficiency cracked up at Carcassonne Airport, as although the luggage was quick, the Hertz car people were having One Of Those Days, exacerbated by the printer fouling up. They did not give me the keys at first, so I went back for them. Then, I had much trouble finding the car, getting hot (29°C today) doing so. The drive to Sorèze via Villemagne was very pretty, with huge views over Aude. We went over the last pass of yesterday's stage of Le Tour, which leads almost into Sorèze & parked. Vicky was very welcoming, with tea & strawberries & has put us in the huge attic. But she had bad news about more bomb attacks in London. After cleaning up, we watched the BBC World Service television news, which showed four rather amateurish attempts at bombing, which did not seem to do any damage to speak of & no one injured. This lead to the theory that last fortnight's bombers did not know they were being set up for suicide, as the present set tried to escape, with what success, we do not know. Ian Blair (chief cop) was being very cagey. Vicky made us a splendid dinner, putting posh French crisps into us as we watched the telly, then paté, then fish in a heavyweight ratatouille & fruit & excellent sorbet for pud. We also drank too much wine!