We have spent an enchanted week-plus in the medieval town of Lagrasse, in the south of France.
After the Catholic Church successfully eradicated the heretical Cathars in the 14th Century, they established an abbey to preserve the Church’s grip on the populace. The town of Lagrasse grew up beside the abbey.
The abbey today is inhabited by Jesuits who grow olives and wine grapes. In their long brown robes they play soccer with the local kids.
The abbey’s bell rings on the half hour, followed exactly two minutes later by the bell of the local Catholic church.
We stayed in the apartment of our old (but younger than us) friends Michael and Nan. A couple of days after we arrived, they drove the 12 hours from their residence in Delft, Netherlands, to join us for the week.
The outer wall of their apartment is stone, a full meter thick, forming part of the outer wall of the town, properly defensible from whoever might attempt to take by force the local resources: wine, olive oil, and violet ice cream.
Every inch of the town begs for a watercolor painter. If only we knew one.
The only times Gray was without her sketchbook in hand were sleeping, swimming, and meals.
Ok, scratch “and meals”.
Lagrasse sits on the d’Orbieu River, a clear-running creek this time of year, which can rise 30 feet in flood, filling basements and first floors in the town. In late summer, it’s more of a creek.
The only grocer in town keeps random shop hours and stocks a random selection of wares to match.
On Saturday morning, though, a market is held in the open square outside the apartment.
On first glance, it doesn’t look like much, but step inside and look again…
We stocked up on peaches, plums, vegetables, beef, poultry, sausage, salami, paté, cheeses, wine, and gluten-free bread. It’s France.
For dessert we could wander down the lane along the river to an ice cream shop. Gray had mint chip in a cup. I had violet ice cream in a cone. It’s a thing.
The river is home to herons, ducks, wagtails, astoundingly beautiful kingfishers, and Great Gray Herons that look like our Great Blue Heron but say “snirk!” instead of “snork!”. And fish.
The d’Orbeau looks like a trout stream and is stocked with trout in the spring, but this time of year the visible fish are Chevesne aka Chevaine (Squalius cephalus) up to 18” in length and Mediterranean Barbel (Barbus meridionalis) up to 24”.
I had planned a fishing-free vacation for my right hand to recover after a summer of excessive fly casting. But Michael discovered that I fly fished, disappeared into their store room, and emerged with four fly rods, reels to match, and assorted fly tackle, left over from his days fishing trout in the Colorado Rockies.
The water was cool, but warm enough for me to wade in my sandals. I found the little Chevesne would pick at dry flies all day and the bigger ones would take a dry fly in the late afternoon.
Barbels, however, preferred a slice of salami.
The Barbel looks like a bonefish and fights even harder than a wet rag. They try. I took a special liking to Barbels when I read they are considered a biological indicator of high water quality. Both species are eaten by the French, though the Barbel has poisonous roe. I let mine go back in the “river” to enjoy life and make more.
Michael and Nan are former bike racers, and took regular bike rides on their featherweight carbon fiber bicycles.
Nan, petite and svelte, remains a cycling beast, riding a fast 35 km through the foothills of the nearby Pyrenees one morning.
Their apartment was briefly visible to television viewers of the Tour de France. Michael watched the Tour de Spain at night on his computer.
Afternoons included a swim in the river.
At 1:30 am I woke to soft rustling and crunching noises. Had a rat had gotten in to nibble my chocolate bar? I slipped out of bed to investigate and found the sounds were coming from outside. I stood in the cool breeze of the open window and strained to see and hear in the moonless night.
From the rustling noises and footsteps I could localize two large beings roaming around in the dark directly below. The one on the left was concealed by the stirring bushes. My view of the one on the right was blocked by a balcony one floor below. That one was making loud hollow crunches, like bones being crushed in the teeth of a bear or large dog. CRACK! A Scops Owl tooted intermittently in the distance. CRUNCH!
My best guess was that I was listening to a pair wild boars that had descended from the forested hills above the abbey and waded across the river, but what was the crunching? In the morning, the ground by the patio was covered with large, cloven footprints, in the shade of a pair of bearing walnut trees.
The next evening we wandered up the street for dessert but found the ice cream shop had closed. The owner, who puts trout in the river every spring, was gone for a week of boar hunting. Filling the larder and making Lagrasse safer for walnuts.
Some pics from Gray’s sketchbook:
We are off to the town of Arles on the Rhône, close to the Mediterranean.
Eye of the Cormorant 