SOLO WALK TO LES FARGOUSSIERES: RESISTANCE!

I enjoy walking in groups but I also enjoy walking by myself. Setting my own pace. Trying new paths. Getting lost. The sorts of things that you can't do in a group, especially when you are in the lead. So when no one took up my offer to lead a walk the other day, I wasn't disappointed. All spring long, I'd been wanting to see what a walk to Le Fargoussieres would be like. I particularly wanted to check out a memorial to the French resistance that I'd visited a year or so ago on a walk sponsored by the local historical society.

I began on the path to the Croix de Juillet, a walk that our group has taken a time or two in the past. Then I broke off, took the paved road to the hamlet of Les Fargoussieres, visited the memorial, then found me way back to the return path of the Croix de Juillet walk. It all worked well. With the help of my GPS mapper, I didn't get lost. But the route was a few of kilometers longer that I thought that it would be. Shade was scarce as the day warmed up. My water ran out. I was on the cusp of sending up a flare. Add to that my disappointment that the memorial has not been well maintained - the weeds were waist high and the printed information sheets were not properly protected and were water stained - and I did not finish the day a happy hiker.

But here are the pics. I'll talk to the local historical society about fixing things up, maybe laminating some of the documents. You can find more of our walks and my takes on French life in general HERE and HERE.

Started in the church square as we so often do.

I could have taken the D184 all of the way to Les Fargoussieres, but that would have been too easy.

I have to remember to carry an apple or a pear or something.

It's been a good year for poppies. I'm headed up and over the hill in the upper left.

Three paths cross: the road, the greenway for walkers and bikes, and the path into the vines. Yes, I choose the path least traveled.

The path least traveled had a car at the top. Hunter? Working the vines? Walking the dog? Never saw whoever it was.

The storage tanks at the co-op make a good visual reference.

The yellow bastards have a picture of my nose imprinted on their DNA. As soon as they flower, they attack!

But they can't hide the lovely views...

And I walked to school and back every day, and it was uphill both ways.

It's been a good year for more than the poppies.

I don't remember seeing these before.

You can barely see the blue arrow on that rock but in life it's very prominent. Turn left at the T!

The blue X on the tree means that I'm going off the path to the Croix de Juillet.

The featureless D184. I never saw a car.

A small hamlet but an ancient one...

With well kept flower beds.

A roadside display for no apparent reason except to be pretty.

It's early spring but I would have thought that the weeds would have been mowed.

Water stained document telling the important story of young people risking their lives for their freedom.

This 'garden' is what's left of the hard work of the former Resistance fighter detailed above.

Leaving Les Fargoussieres and heading back into the vines.

Give me the words to describe views like this.

Not the Croix de Juillet. This is the Arab Cross.

Yes, the co-op can be seen in the distance. I can get home from here blindfolded.

RESTAURANT TEN, UZES: RESTAURANT REVIEW

Ten sits just off the market square in Uzes, one of the prettiest villages in southern France. The newly renovated space is airy and comfortable with tables of sufficient size and sufficiently spaced to provide for a pleasant dining experience. Service was cheerful, fully bilingual, and attentive without being overbearing. The food presented well to both eye and tongue. And the rate of approximately 30 € per person for a party of five included starters, mains, a dessert or two, two bottles of local wine, and coffees at the finish. Reasonable if not cheap eats. So why am I hesitant to give an unqualified thumbs up? It took me a while to figure it out. Uzes is a quintessentially French village in a quintessentially French region of southern France. There are those who will say that the Languedoc is just as beautiful but less crowded and less expensive than its eastern neighbors. I know. I'm one of those people. But the fact remains that for many people, villages like Uzes are t

Kreuz Market vs. Smitty’s Market: Texas Barbecue in Lockhart

I was born and raised in New Jersey. I didn’t taste Texas barbecue until I was twenty-two years old. What the hell do I know about barbecue? And what could I add to the millions of words that have been written on the subject? Well, I know a bit about food. I’ve managed to check out a few of the finer joints in Texas – Sonny Bryan’s Smokehouse in Dallas, Joe Cotton’s in Robstown before the fire, the dear departed Williams Smokehouse in Houston, and the incomparable New Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Huntsville . So I can speak from a reasonably wide experience. This will not be a comprehensive discussion of the relative merits of Texas barbecue as opposed to the fare available in places like Memphis or the Carolinas. It’s simply a take on our recent visits to Lockhart and the relative merits of Smitty’s versus Kreuz from our point of view. I’ll get all over academic in a later post. On our way out to the ranch in Crystal City, we stopped at Smitty’s. You have to look

VINS I LICORS GRAU: LARGEST WINE BOUTIQUE IN EUROPE

One of the regular sporting activities that those of us living in the south of France enjoy is the semi-annual Run to Spain. Most everybody takes part. It's not a track meet, though. It's a shopping run. We go because some items are cheaper in Spain, substantially so. (I buy Cathey's favorite perfume there because it sells for less than in the duty-free shops, much less than in the local French parfumerie . But don't tell Cathey that. It'll be our little secret.) Some items simply are not available locally - a reasonable selection of Spanish wines, a bottle of brandy to feed the Christmas cake. And so, off we go Spain. Just across the border sits La Jonquera, a small Catalonian town whose name is now attached to a massive array of opportunities to spend euros - department stores and specialty shops, garden centers, liquor stores, tobacconists, groceries and butchers. You want it? You can buy it somewhere along the main drag heading south out of the old town. We

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