We had an interesting and varied day, including a flea market, a drive in the country and a rugby match, plus a fair bit of thinking and talking.
The flea market seems to be a major in this region, and moves from town to town more or less monthly on a Sunday. All the central streets and many side streets were full of trash stalls, but we did find a good range of English language books. There’s not much you would ever want to buy, not even for furnishing a French apartment. One place had some gorgeous Art deco furniture, but at horrendous process. We followed up the flea market with a walk around the outer streets to get a better idea of what Céret is about, and were pleasantly surprised to find the cleanliness and general quality of the surroundings isn’t confined to the central areas as it can be in tourist towns.
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| Arles-sur-Tech cloisters |
We packed a lunch and headed up the Tech Valley (also known as Vallespir) to see what was beyond Arles-sur-Tech where we had visited with Sandy & Lynette 2 years ago. We were aiming to see whether the cheaper towns up the valley were possibilities. The answer is a clear “no”. Amelie-les-Bains is tired, messy and runs both sides of the road through rather like a French Levin. Arles-sur-Tech could have a very attractive centre, but is even more tired, and has very few facilities. It was dead when we visited, though we did stop for a coffe and some bougnettes at our usual on the corner.
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| Road up the valley from Ceret |
A nice surprise further up the valley was Prats-de-Mollo-la-Preste. It is a stunning antique town with an amazing castle/church above, and a fortress connected by a 160m tunnel above that again. It was relatively lively, with restaurants and bars doing good trade, and our money would buy quite a lot more. However it is a further 45 minutes of winding road from Céret. Clearly worth a day trip, but quite a bit too much to live there. The valley is stunningly green and leafy. We can’t think of anywhere in New Zealand that would be as lush, perhaps parts around Cambridge or Arrowtown. It really is very attractive.
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| Would you wear this? |
On returning to Céret we went to the finals of the local 4
th and 1
st division club rugby, as you do on a Sunday in France. The uniforms of the winning 4
th div side were something to behold. They clearly take the art heritage of this area very seriously indeed. We can’t imagine any NZ side wearing bright cerise, or an arty fluoro multicolour mix including arty socks. The 1
st division match was a torrid affair. Every second play ended up with a prone body or two on the turf – there would have been 40 stoppages for injury, 2 red and 1 yellow cards, with Prats-de-Mollo the victors in extra time. The props were mostly 35 year old bald short heavy-gutted bruisers you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley.
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| "Our" apartment is centre building, all top floor |
We keep going back to Place de l’Eglise to watch the way the sun moves around “our” square, and to try to get some inspiration about purchasing or not. We also wrote a long series of questions to ask various people tomorrow.
