A weekend at the Mediterranean

We just had a fantastic weekend at the Mediterranean at a little town called Collioure, about 15 km from the Spanish border. We picked up Sophie from school at midday on Friday and headed south. We arrived at the coast at about 5pm, despite a couple of breaks, including lunch, on the way down. Jane clocking 138km per hour at one stage certainly helped. I think we had a tail wind too. And it’s windy down there. I have not seen so many wind turbines in my life, some of them right near the highway.  Close to Collioure Soph saw snow for the first time on top of a huge mountain, which I suppose was the beginning of the Pyrenees.  

The photo below shows Collioure and surrounding area, taken from a 13^th century Cathar fort we visited on the Sunday. It’s amazing how they have cultivated grape vines on the hillsides. They were growing out of gravel!

 

This photo below shows Jane and Soph on the first night we arrived when we were having a good look around the town. You can see that 13^th century fort I took the previous photo from on the hill up on the left hand side.  We stayed at a nice hotel right next to the sea, just over that hill on the far left. It was about a 15 minute walk along the coast into town, great walk and much needed considering the size of the hotel breakfast meals we enjoyed.

 

Here is Sophie on the swings at Collioure. The town is absolutely beautiful, I could easily go back there. It’s well known in the arts arena as a few famous painters lived there and were inspired by the place. Matisse was one of them. The place has a real Spanish feel to it too.  

 

This photo shows Jane and the kids down next to the shore with a very old sea side church in the back ground. It was also used as a lighthouse. I was very tempted to jump in. Connor had a ball throwing rocks into the sea, he was allowed to this time considering the whole shore is made up of pebbles.

 

On the Saturday we headed out for diner. This photo was taken by the waiter just after we sat down. Sophie was having a nap in the pram next to Jane. What a backdrop hey. It was special, probably the best meal we’ve had since we’ve been in France, due to the food, the location, and the company of course :)

 

This photo was taken on mother’s day (the French one) last week. I had planned to take Jane out for lunch, but by the time we visited an antiques market at a nearby town, La Bastide Murat, we were running out of time. Luckily at the market they had a little hot food stall, which served up some simple hot food for us, complete with a couple of plastic cups filled with red wine. They lent me a tray to take the food to Jane and the kids who were in a nearby park as shown below. Jane really enjoyed it, which was the main thing. And the kids had a playground to play on which was a bonus, for them and us. 

Lunch is served.....

Enjoying our lunch, with the whole park to ourselves, Connor was probably over to the left on the slide, what a spot

Summer has arrived, well not really....The sunny weather has certainly arrived, yesterday was nice and warm with hardly a cloud in the sky. The sun going down at about 9.30pm is great too. They’re forecasting  temperatures in the late twenties later this week. Summer actually doesn’t actually start until the 21^st of June, which is also the longest day of the year, strange hey. It feels like it’s starting now. I’m looking forward to that second dip in our pool.

Sante (cheers in French, it actually means “health”),

Jane, Sophie, Connor, and me