Recap December Part II: John's Visit

John came to visit me for about 10 days from December 7 - 16th . We had a blast. I think we got a good mix in of doing everyday things around Toulouse, as well as making it enough of a vacation for him by being very active and doing a lot of new things as well.

John got in on a Tuesday evening. I gave him a quick tour of my favorite spots on la rive gauge, or my side of the river, as the sun was setting, including the view I have of the whole city from the bridge I live right next to, and a quick walk in the park next to Les Abbatoirs that runs next to La Garonne (the river).  

 Taken on another day, the view of the bridge (Des Catalans) that I live next to from the park next to Les Abbatoirs.

 View from the park of the bridge St. Pierre and the right side of the river.

The bridge Neuf, or "new bridge", which actually happens to be the oldest bridge in Toulouse, by night.

Wednesday he came to a Mangesters, Inc dinner at my friend Ana's which was great because he got to meet many of my assistant friends (and everyone there spoke English!). For the weekend he was here we left Toulouse and went to my colleague Martine’s country house in Roquefort (where I went back in October). We had absolutely gorgeous weather, even nicer than when I was there in the fall! We hiked in the Corbiere mountains, saw Spain from a walk we did along the beach by the Mediterranean, and walked through these amazing Heather fields with Martine and some of her friends from the area. (No, John did not partake in the gathering of the Heather, but instead spent the walk fashioning a spear out of a branch "in case we ran into any wild boar.") We also saw a piece of the Via Domitia which is the ancient road built in 118BC that connected Italy to Hispania, running through from what was then Gaul and is today Narbonne in Southern France. My favorite part of the weekend was a walk we did along these gorgeous salt water "ponds" called the Peyriac-de-mer on the Aude coast which are named as one of UNESCO's protected sites. The variation of the terrain in the Languedoc-Rouissilon region is amazing, within 2 days we saw wild rocky Mediterranean hills covered with olive trees and rosemary, fields of flowers, the sea, and these salt ponds. 

 Us in front of Les Peyriac-de-Mer

 More of the gorgeous Peyriac-de-Mer ponds

The Via Domitia - you can even still see the ruts from the wagon wheels!

View of Spain from the beach in Port-la-Nouvelle 

We also did a day ski-trip to Ax-Les-Thermes, which is mountain in the southern Pyrenees near Andorra, also known for its natural hot springs. The rail system in region I live in, Midi-Pyranees, has awesome combo round-trip train tickets and lift ticket deals for all the mountains near here, so John and I were able to take the train 2 hours away to Ax, ski a full day, and get the train home for 33 euros a person! As it was early on in the season there was not much snow, and only about ¼ of the mountain was open, but on the upside, we were almost the only people on the mountain, to the point that we began marking trails and where we were on the mountain using people we had seen going down the trails as landmarks! No lines to say the least, and, though cold, it was a sunny and clear day.

When we first arrived in Ax we were a bit skeptical about what we were getting ourselves into, as the train deposited at 7am us at a tiny train station with no employees, no buses, and in fact no one else in sight. We walked a few minutes down the road until we found a ski rental place, again, with no one inside but the 2 people behind the counter. After verifying that the mountain was in fact open, we proceeded to rent skis and continue on foot to the gondola at the base of the mountain, where again, there was literally not a soul besides the man working the gondola. We took that up away from the town and up the mountain partway to get to the lodge/base area where we were at this point sincerely hoping to run into some people, it was starting to resemble The Shining. Still no luck with signs of life up there, I'm talking deserted restaurants, no liftees walking around, nothing. So we found some lockers (again, in a creepy, empty locker room that looked like no one had been in it in years) and locked our stuff up more out of habit than fear of someone actually coming upon it, and took the gondola the rest of the way up. While we didn't have much more luck finding people we had an excellent day skiing, once we got past the eeriness of being almost the only people there! After John left I was watching the news here at home and saw a special they were doing on that exact resort and they were interviewing employees on site talking about how they were booked for the coming months and expecting an incredibly busy season, too weird!

We also did a day trip to a town called Carcassonne which is 2 hours away in the region of Languedoc-Rouissilon, per John’s Uncle Mike’s suggestion. Carcassonne is a Medieval fortified city whose origins date back to the 6^th century BC. Carcassonne was reconstructed in the later half of the 19th century by the famous French architect Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc, who also restored the Notre Dame de Paris. Today, it is a perfectly preserved walled city, with inhabitants living inside the city walls! There is with a second walled caslte inside which we toured as well – a fort within a fort. It was really impressive to imagine how impossible it was to enter its formidable multi-layered protections. It became a running joke that I had actually rented out all of these places especially for John’s visit, as we were once again almost the only people in the place! 

Me sitting on the bridge over the old moat to the castle within the outer walls of Carcassonne. 

John and I had to self-timer all our photos since there was no one to ask to take our picture. 

John contemplating his attack.

View of the outer-ramparts that encircle the city that we walked along, you have an excellent view of the rest of the city of Carcassonne - that is the part outside the ancient walls. 

John on the ramparts in front of one of the 2 main entrances to the outer walls.

If you want to read more about Carcassonne: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/345

Finally, John and I celebrated a lovely Christmas meal here with Gisele and Gabby before leaving to go back to the states. Then John left the 16th, just beating the snow in Heathrow. I unfortunately did not have such luck, as, when I showed up at the airport in Toulouse 2 days later on the 18th, was told that my flight to JFK though London was cancelled, and that I would be luck to get on the next days flight going through Madrid. A bit of a rough start to the vacation, but definitely manageable - no dramatic overnight stays on airport floors, I was able to just turn around and go back to my place in Toulouse for another night. 

Our Christmas tree here on rue Gay-Lussac in Toulouse :)