avril 17-22: More Roquecave time

My later days at the last farm were much the same as previous: not a ton of work because there wasn't much cheese and consequently lots of time to hang around, run, hike and read. I occupied a few hours one rainy day with baking banana bread, however. I explained to Carole and Ingo that often in the U.S. when you have overripce bananas, you would make banana bread, so I was pressed into service. After finding a recipe online that actually contained the very French ingredient of crème fraîche as one of the fats, I set about gathering ingredients from their various corners. Flour and eggs from the cave (cold room), oil in the kitchen, sugar searched out underneath the counter (thankfully vanilla bean-infused!), and walnuts from a sack upstairs. The bread was super moist and got good reviews from the family.

I also had a chance to sell at a few markets with Ingo and Carole. One was an atypical French market in that it was restricted to organic producers (with one re-seller thrown in) and took place from 4-8pm for working people to be able to come. It felt much more like a farmers' market in Massachusetts with more younger and middle aged customers and fewer vendors.

The market in Olonzac is one Ingo has done for 23 years. His table is underneath a pavillion with a bunch of others including the charcuterie truck, but the market stretches throughout the streets of this small town. There were tons of people selling asparagus during its short season, as well as the normal mix of grocery, prepared food and clothing/bags/cloth vendors. I sold on my own a bunch while Ingo took the opportunity to run some errands and wander around. I fared just fine and actually met a couple from Newton, MA one week! Customers at the market in general during the day skew heavily towards the elderly folk who congregate and chat on various corners. There are also tourists, parents with young kids, and other people who aren't at work for some reason or another. My favorite by far were the older ladies who walked around with their bikes at the market almost using them as walkers. It's great that they can still use them to get around town to see people and do their shopping even though they have trouble walking.



After the market, Ingo drove me to Narbonne where I took the train to Nîmes to spend four nights. I enjoyed a picnic lunch on the train while watching the countryside get progressively more southerly-looking.

Roquecave photos

The house at the farm. I sleep in the building to the right. Ingo, Carole and Camille working to get the donkeys inside. Typical breakfast.




You can see the Pyrenees from here! And even though this is a regional park, the land is still used for tree plantations where you can see the abrupt change from pine to something else. On my hike today, I often had to open and close pasture gates so donkeys or sheep didn't escape.



This marker was by the side of a tiny mountain road.



Molding fresh cheeses. Washed-rind cheeses aging. More cheese.

From whence the cheese comes.

The church in Olonzac (one market where Ingo sells), retains its Revolutionary spirit. (The French government took over all of the churches during the Revolution and made them property of the State.)

Miette, the house kitten who is sleeping on my lap as I type.

Toulouse photos

That would be the hall window outside my hotel room.






Inside and outside of Toulouse's impressive city hall.



At the Musée des Augustins.



Super brick architecture. Street signs in French and Occitan, the regional language. I have also seen ones like this in Provençal and Breton.



The French trains have a system whereby you can stick your unaccompanied kid on the train under their supervision. It's great, I think, but not everyone likes to wear the brightly-colord baseball caps that are required.

Bayeux photos

The Bayeux cathedral and a hard to see fresco that was in the crypt. The columns were all painted with angels playing music, even including one with a snare drum (here) and one with a triangle!



A Liberty Tree outside the cathedral that still remains from its planting during the Revolution.



Who says Tim is the only one dealing with adverse toilet situations on his trip?

Massive photo dump

So it's kind of a pain to place photos into blog entries after they're posted, and they end up looking like that last one with squnched text that's hard to read. Thus, here's a bunch of photos that correspond to the last entries that have none. I've handily inserted breaks where the entries change and commentary where it's needed. Hopefully future entries will be more in the regular blog style.

View over the marsh from my room. The chateau.

My sweet room, and the church in Monfréville.

Those are bags of seaweed in the trunk.

David in the kitchen, and a plate of quail.

So pregnant. Few day old lamb.

avril 5: Omaha Beach

(Going back in time here since I forgot the entry before)

While at Chateau Monfréville, I took a day trip to visit Omaha beach where my dad's dad landed on D-Day. Its one of two beaches where American troops landed on the Normandy coast and is the one where they faced a much stiffer challenge from the Germans. Standing on the beach today, it's a bit tough to imagine thousands of men spilling out of boats and scrambling over the dunes, then up steep cliffs. There aren't a lot of traces left from the war here, save some bits of rusted metal that stick up from the sand now and then.

I walked down to the beach after making my way through the small museum that opened last year at the American war cemetery. It's very well done with images, video and some objects from the invasion, including the bag and contents that a medic like my grandfather would have carried.

The cemetery itself is stark with about 9000 white stone crosses, and a few stars of David, marking the graves. Many American dead were repatriated as they are today, so the cemetery could have been even bigger.

Earlier in my time there, I visited the German war cemetery which holds 21,000 dead. It's equally stark and a bit more sombre with rough-hewn, dark stone crosses and flat grave markers in the grass.

There are reminders often in this area of the invasion whether it's gaudy museums of weapons run by locals or panels in churches memorializing Allied sacrifices. All over France that I've seen, in fact, the world wars are so present in the form of memorials even in towns of just a few hundred people. Since this is the ground where they were fought, the memories are still fresh.