16 - 20 May
The view from the train window changes somewhere, somehow and possibly imperceptably, from seemingly endless fields of wheat to vines, vines and still more vines. By the time I notice, we are in the Corbières (Appellation contrôlée) area. Do not hesitate to buy wine from here. There is nothing wrong with the location – nor the wine – and it is usually reasonably priced. Not that NZ prices are anything like here. A more-than-passable wine will set you back 3-4€. Even 2€ wine is still passable.
In a moment of epiphany in 1939, Dali cited Perpignan Station as ‘the centre of the Universe’, not because of its location but because of its functionality and simplicity, as I understand. For us it was merely the end of our journey; the train continued on to the Spanish border. Alain was there waiting and welcomed us with a big grin. Even at 7.30pm the weather was balmy and sunny and it felt a good place to be.
Alain has a two-storied house, with a garden and an extra piece of land which he bought off the neighbours a few years ago. This is now an extensive vegetable garden which also gives him access to a concrete channel through which water usually flows two days a week. From here he can pump water to not only the vegetable garden but also the rest of the garden, with trees, flowers, rose bushes and some more vegetables. It all seems to work well and we had fresh lettuce daily. He was fascinated by my stories of how to water a garden during a drought period in Canberra
The kings of Majorca built a Palace in Perpignan in the 13th-14th century, embellished by others later, especially the 16th century fortifications, which foreshadow those of Vauban (Louis XIV’s man) a century later. Of course, Vauban did have a hand in extending them later, as he would. Apparently the kings of Majorca (who ruled the region during a Golden Age for a century or so) travelled with their court and this palace is said to be the same as the one they had in
Both Chris and I had seen the Castillet (little castle, I guess. Fortification 14th C) relatively recently and left that off our visiting list. However, we took pleasure in wandering the narrow streets, with some fairly ancient houses to look at here and there. A ‘spectacle’ in the Musée Hyacinth Rigaud deserves some space. This Hyacinth was a 17th century local painter, son of a painter. Portraits were where he found his niche – Louis XIV, XV, Fontaine, Racine, Vauban among others. The show that we attended, however, went beyond the paintings of our man Hyacinth, and took us around the 3 floors of the exhibition in the museum, a former private house (mansion, really). Following a tall, top-hatted 19th century gentleman, accompanied by a saxophonist(e) and a couple of ‘butterflies’ on the end of a fishing line, we, the audience, like some latterday children of Hamlin, were introduced to the major elements of the exhibition, together with some modern dance, mime and readings (eg an exchange of letters between Gauguin in Tahiti and a friend in France). Totally fascinating, an interesting way to see the exhibition and quite amazing to see how very well-behaved even the smallest of the children were and how well the butterflies did their job of attracting attention.
We had already seen the exhibition in our own time – prior to some sort of festivity involving apéritifs, wine, juice, cherry tomatoes, savouries, almond pastries, little sweet pastries and copious quantities of Belgian chocolate in the form of a modern sculpture involving champagne bottles. I couldn’t quite believe that people would break pieces off the sculpture, but this was what it was designed for and all gave it its due. The chocolate that spurted out of the top of the chocolate champagne bottle was …. champagne flavoured. And the orange flowers were white chocolate with a dusting of something yummy. Edible art! Outstanding.
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