Our Table in the Tarn

We had a huge day of driving on Saturday 11 July. We whizzed down to a place called Santa Susanna just north of Barcelona to drop Simone and family off at their hotel.

On the way to Santa Susanna we stopped at Figueres to have a quick look around the fabulous Dali Museum. In total this took about 9 hours. We had a nice time in spite of Matthew throwing up once, it being stinking hot, and not being able to use the air conditioning in case the lack of fresh air lead to Matthew getting sick again. Add a couple of (“bouchons”) traffic jams into the equation and you can see why the drive took as long as it did. By this stage we had discovered how to use our on board navigation system, which we nicknamed Babette (musicals fan will recognise the name from “On the 20th Century”). Babette was very good at warning us about les bouchons but it was up to us to work out whether they would clear quickly and thus not be a problem or to take Babette’s alternative route. We did take her alternative route once and we think that it got us around a tres grande bouchon but still added at least an hour to the trip.

Dali is buried in the Museum



Mae West realised through furniture and a distorting lense


We then had a 3 hour drive back to Toulouse to pick Julia up before heading to our cottage in Ambres, in the Tarn Valley, just outside Toulouse.


We had a pretty quiet week in Ambres. Dale and I were exhausted after 6 weeks of travelling in Spain and France. Julia had also been on holidays for 4 weeks by this time and had just finished a 2 week language course in Bordeaux. Ambres is a tiny hameau of only a handful of houses. It’s at the top a hill and overlooks rolling hills with fields of maize and sunflowers.

Ambres in the distance

Fields viewed from our backdoor

The house was very comfortable. It has only 2 stories but blessedly 2 toilets. The toilets however are interesting beasts and the Richards refer to them as “cookie monsters”. They shred the waste and make a frightening noise in the process. Anyway only 2 stories and 2 toilets was a lovely change after having spent a week in the cottage in Buis les Baronnies with its 4 stories and 1 toilet. The downside of Ambres is that it is so small that you can’t just wander around the corner to pick up some bread or a morning patisserie. There is a boulangerie a few kilometres down the road and the town of Lavaur is just over 5 kilometres away.

Our cottage is on the left

We got up late on Sunday and went to the market in L’Isle sur le Tarn. The town has beautiful half timbered houses and we all enjoyed the market. In addition to the usual stash of sausages and cheese, Julia and I also bought ourselves wallets made by a local leather maker.



Bastille Day was on the Tuesday after we arrived. The main celebrations in nearby Lavaur took place on Monday night. We arrived in town at about 7.15 pm, just after the parade of the soldiers and emergency service people had finished. Fortunately we arrived just in time for the free drinks provided by the Marie. After our couple of free drinks we wandered along the main street and found a popular cafe (Le ver a soie – seems to literally mean towards the silk or the way to the silk?). We sat down for dinner and during dinner the town band wandered up and down the street playing tunes, although we didn’t hear Les Marseillais. Berets were on display everywhere and many families were eating out. Later on a blues band started playing and it was great to see both children and older men (in particular) getting up and jiving along to the music.

Does anybody still wear a hat? (apologies SS)

Just as we finished dinner at 11 pm a fireworks and laser show started in front of the cathedral. Just in case Anthony feels inclined to google Lavaur’s Bastille Day program, I point out the it states that the fireworks were to start at 11.30 pm but they most definitely started early at 11 pm. This meant that we found ourselves racing over to the Cathedral with throngs of other people to catch the show. The fireworks were great but the light show on the cathedral was truly spectacular. At one point the cathedral was hauntingly bathed in red.

Lavaur Cathederal by Day

Lavaur Cathederal gussied up for Bastille Day

How to provide shade for parking French style (wouldn’t Southland look better topped with trees like this?)

On Wednesday we went to nearby Albi where Julia visited the Toulouse Lautrec Museum and the Cathedral. Dale and I had visited these in 2003 so we wandered around trying to find a wifi cafe so that we could publish another blog. We couldn’t find any wifi cafes but we did find something called a Mediatheque, which seems to be a public library that focuses on providing access to the internet and loaning DVDs and CDs. This sounds like a good service but the connection kept dropping out and you only got access for 30 minutes, which meant that we had to keep going back to get a new ticket to renew the connection. I am ashamed to say that that blog was published in McDonalds at Lavaur. As an aside you often hear ads for “Macdos” on French radio. It sounds funny!

Houses dwarfed by Albi Cathedral

On Wednesday and Thursday nights Julia cooked wonderful main courses while Dale made cherry clafoutis, which we ate both nights for dessert. When we make the clafoutis at home I confess that we often buy canned fruit but on this occasion we bought actual cherries and Dale and I spent a delightful half an hour pitting them. But let’s get back to Julia’s culinary delights.
On Wednesday night Julia made a salad that consisted of new onions, baby lettuces, white peaches and chicken breasts covered with vinaigrette (olive oil, walnut oil and balsamic vinegar) and topped with parmesan. The following night she made Poule a l’estragon (Chicken with tarragon) from a French recipe book in the cottage. As a result she also had to translate the recipe into English. The recipe is, briefly, that the chicken is sealed and stuffed with tarragon and garlic. After cooking for a little while it is covered with a gravy sauce that is flavoured with garlic, more tarragon, crème fraiche and the chicken juices. The chicken was then cooked in the gravy sauce until it was DELICIOUS.

Eating lunch outside on the terrace

Eating chicken and peach salad

On Thursday and Friday we visited a town called Giroussens that was very close to Ambres. It overlooks the Aude river and has an excellent restaurant called L’Echauguette that we ate at on Friday night. It also has an excellent pottery museum where we bought another little momento to add to our difficult to transport keepsakes.

View from the heights of the restaurant at Giroussens

The town of Cordes sur Ciel was a little further away and is perched on a hill top overlooking beautiful valleys on all sides. We wandered around the delightful narrow cobble stones streets and discovered some interesting craft shops, where yet more interesting purchases were made.


Dale unfortunately got a migraine on Friday – only the second since we’ve been away - so he decided to stay at home on Friday night while Julia and I went to L’Echauguette for dinner. We had a phenomenal fine dining experience. Some of the highlights were:
· Les amuse bouches including a petite loaf of freshly cooked bread with a selection of cheeses, a spoonful of “to die for’’ foie gras brulee and a green foamy thing (I still don’t know what was in it but it was nice).
· My entree of ox tongue terrine.
· Julia’s main course of quail with fennel.
· Rhubarb clafoutis.
We had 6 courses but left feeling full but not stuffed. We made sure that we arrived right on time at 8pm, when the restaurant opened, and we got a great seat by the window overlooking the surrounding country side as the sun set. All the other patrons appeared to be French and we received wonderful service from the staff who seemed to be faintly amused by our French.


Next onto hiking in the Alps