We turn in the car and then REST!!!

The drive to Perpignan and the beach (St Cyprien)

MONDAY

We start this week by resting at home.

One of the pads on my glasses comes off,

so we take advantage of having a car and

go to Quillan to fix my glasses -

TUESDAY

Yoga in the morning

In the afternoon, we start our adventure to find "la plage"

It's supposed to be a 2 hour drive to the beach.

A beautiful drive with
rain clouds in the distance...

Signs are hard for us to read, we get very lost in the

traffic and congestion of Perpignan on our way to the beach.

After 3 hours, we find a town center where we park and

get "deux cafe au laits" before walking the beach walk

The village of St Cyprien (we think)

Le Plage - wooden walkways out to the beach
It's raining, windy and cold - we admire from the car

Driving back we drive round and round the vacation condos

of St Cyprien and

finally find our way back to Perpignan then

back on D117 towards home...

It's been over 6 hours since we left when we get home

WEDNESDAY

We return car today – it's raining

In the afternoon we drive the 45 minutes

to the Carcassonne Airport

If we don't fill the tank we will be charged 100 euros for gas

We go to 4 different gas stations - 2 won't take our credit cards,

we can't figure out how to pump the gas at another and the final station does take visa credit cards and we are instructed on how to pump the gas and get a receipt to be able to use the credit card - but no reciept appears.  John goes to the cashier's booth and explains and is able to pay.  We now have to find our way to the aiport (another challenge since we got lost looking for a gas station that had a cashier to help us).  We turn in the car at the airport and then wait for the airport bus to take us to Carcassonne - we wait an hour in the cold wind of the airport parking lot.

In Carcassone, we find a restaurant for lunch - Le Bistro -

we have a lovely lunch of Moules et Frites...

Le Bistro booths

Moules et Frites - yummy
We love mussells and frys - this seems
to be a very poplular menu

After a restful and satisfying lunch, we take the KeolisAude bus (#53) back to Esperaza. Another challenging day is over.

THURSDAY

French Class

Looking out the window
at a French street from French class

then we catch up on neglected work

as a reward we have dinner next door of fish and chips

...it just opened today!

The Yellow building is the Restaurant
Upstairs is a gift shop

FRIDAY & SATURDAY

Sleep in and take advantage of the beautiful weather in the afternoon.

Beautiful sun shines through the gorgeous clouds
while we read our Kindles - not a bad way to spend the days

SUNDAY

Easter Sunday

Dimanche  Marche -we do our shopping and then have café au lait at the resto next door

there's a Carnavale parade that starts during the morning Marche

and then comes back after the Marche is over in the afternoon

The band plays

Parade participants follow the band

Later in the day,  they march and dance in the sqaure for about a half hour
then they march off to somewhere else...???
Later that night they are back in the square and front of the church for more celebrating

It's Easter so we bought Paella from the Marche

God's bounty from the sea

Hope you all had an uplifiting Easter Day -

we've had good day and a great week, too

We are just adding to our "Big Adenture(s)"