Castelnaudary

Hello from the town of Castelnaudry, France.
Today is Friday the 22nd. Mike and I left Victoria on Wed. We enjoyed a mini vacation aboard our Lufthansa flight from Vancouver. Great service and surprisingly comfortable seats. We managed the layover in the Air Canada lounge which - given a shower, and lounge chairs to sleep in - immediately justified renewing our Amex next year.

We met Malcolm and Stephanie at the gate for our Lufthansa flight to Toulouse. They had a bit less sleep and were looking a bit weary. The pilot announced that he wasn't sure how long the flights was going to take because French ATC were on strike and they were routing us via God knows where. Here is my surprise face, as Tara would say. Last time it was train strikes. Evidently, they are rotating at the moment due to Macron's taking on the unions.

We arrived in Toulouse eventually and checked into our cheap and cheerful hotel then headed out for a beer - first item on Mikes list, see attached photo, and a lovely meal. Ah... steak, frites in France. Nouse sommes arrivees. ( really sorry Simone, I have no idea how to make the french accents work on my ipad.)

Today was our touring day . We met up with Fiona, Jiggs and Helen who arrived from London as scheduled. We spent the afternoon wandering and touring about on a little tourist train which Mac dubbed the "loser cruiser". See photo.

Some fun facts about Toulouse: it is the capital of the Haute Garonne Department, home to the large French aerospace industry and the Airbus factory. There are canals that go both west to the Atlantic and east to the Mediterranean ( that's where we are headed.) The name Matabiau is everywhere in Toulouse. We Checked it out and it turns out Matabiau is the name of a martyred Saint Saturnin who really cheesed off the local administration so they tied a bull to him and same bull subsequently dragged him up the main drag - so to speak- and he was killed. On the whole, I wasn't overly impressed with Toulouse as a destination. Not very charming or particularly interesting.

Late this afternoon we headed by train to Castelnaudry. We are now in the home of the harricots or white beans from which they make the local dish, cassoulet - think French equivalent of baked beans, less sugar. The harricot actually have protected status here so you can't shoot them, or insult them. And you most definitely cannot blame harricots for any bad gastric reactions

Tonight we had our first meal together. The gentleman who runs our B& B was kind enough to drive us to the restaurant and the waitress was kind enough to drive us back . For dinner we had - you guessed it - cassoulet and also some duck confit and some lovely local Rose wine.

We're counting on Helen to handle our pre- boarding itinerary of touring about, we will pick up our onboard provisions such as wine, beer, cheese and bread and then at 1600 it is literally all hands on deck for boat training

That's it for now. Hope all is well where you are. I hear Alberta had some snow. So right from smokey season to snow.

Love Heather (Mom) ps if you want to see the pictures, tap on the first one and then scroll throughRead more