Wednesday 20 July 2016

Our Village

During our time here in 2015, we came to realize that for such a small village, there's quite a lot to enjoy in La Bastide sur l'Hers in summer. On a daily basis, we enjoyed croissants, pains au chocolat, maple and pecan slices, and fresh bread from the local boulangerie. We could also buy provisions from a tabac, an épicerie, and a boucherie, have a drink and/or an ice cream (though sadly no 'real' food) at our local bar, and there is even a post office!

Richard looks born to be here in a colour-coordinated outfit at the local bar

One day at the end of July, we woke to find preparations being made for the village fête, a four night festival of live music and scantily clad dancing girls (ooh la la!) until 2 o'clock in the morning. 

Village fête

Also as local residents, we enjoyed being able to use the swimming pool at the village vacances by purchasing tickets at the mairie for a nominal fee, very handy on a hot summer's day. 
Village pool
And for a pretty countryside walk, we discovered a voie verte ran behind the village. A voie verte is a green way or path, in this case an old 38km railway line from Lavelanet to Mirepoix that has been transformed into a walking, cycling and horse-riding path. We aborted several walks along here because of rain but we did make it to the neighbouring village, Le Peyrat, a few times. We are looking forward to getting a couple of bikes and cycling all the way to Mirepoix!

A long wait for the next train at the old train station on the voie verte

Monday 18 July 2016

Sunflowers and Dongles

To complete a basic level of comfort in our new home, we purchased a dongle during our 2015 holiday from boutique Orange in Foix to give us internet access. This gave us really fast internet except, unfortunately, where we really needed it - at home and throughout the entire village of La Bastide sur l'Hers - where it struggled to get an internet connection at all. Even the nearby fields of sunflowers turned out to have better internet access than our village!

Field of sunflowers
Best Wi-Fi spot

Furniture on a Shoestring

After a few days in the house, as the novelty of our basic accommodation began wearing off and the need for more comfort grew, we started looking around for some extra furniture.

Our Luxurious Accommodation
Not knowing if we would be keeping the house for ourselves in the long term or renting it out, we visited the local Emmaüs store in the hope of minimising our spending on furniture. Emmaüs is a well-known charity organisation in France with stores throughout the country selling any number of recycled and second-hand goods at low prices - and all for a good cause. We were amazed at some of the bargains on offer, particularly the old, traditional French style, solid wood furniture, such as dressers and wardrobes on sale for less than 100 euros - if you like that kind of thing.

Solid Wood Furniture at Bargain-Basement Prices

Thanks to Emmaüs we were able to furnish our downstairs living area with some perfectly adequate, albeit old-fashioned, furniture on a shoestring budget. The deckchairs are gone and we now have the luxury of a dining table, proper chairs to sit on, a sofa for sprawling and a coffee table. As an added bonus, Emmaüs even delivered all this to our door for free!

Thursday 14 July 2016

Moving in

Having completed the purchase of our chosen property in La Bastide sur l'Hers earlier in the year, we first moved into and started using the house in July 2015. Moving from overseas into a completely empty house with no furniture or furnishings was something of a logistical challenge but having bought the property, we wanted to start using it as soon as possible: after all, paying for a B&B or hotel seemed to rather defeat the object of having a house in France. To move in asap, our first step was to collect the house keys from the estate agent in Mirepoix.

Mirepoix
To drive here from Barcelona airport where we touched down, we chose the scenic route through the Pyrénées, roughly a 300km journey. Having zipped through Spain, our progress once in France was hampered by unforeseen obstacles - a storm, a closed tunnel in the mountains that required a long detour, French farmers blockading roundabouts, and a boom gate at a level crossing that stayed resolutely lowered and barred any cars from passing. Nevertheless, having made it to the estate agents just before closing, we were on schedule to spend the night at Le Petit Lézard B&B in Léran and take advantage of the town's Friday night marché gourmand or gourmet food market (we can recommend the freshly baked while-you-wait organic pizza).

At Léran's Friday evening gourmet food market
The next morning was all about a bed. Having figured we could live in an empty house so long as we had a bed, we had ordered one online while in Australia from furniture store, magasin But in Foix. We now had to collect the bed before the all-important French closing time at 'midi' (lunch-time). This entailed the following: drive to Foix from Léran in hire car (37km) and find the store; once loaded with the bed parts and mattress, drive free van loaned by magasin But to house in La Bastide sur l'Hers (36km).

Free removal van from magasin But
Next, unload the bed into the house; then drive the van back to the store in Foix (36km); and finally pick up our car and drive home (another 36 km). Phew! We know the road to Foix quite well by now!

Moving In
In the afternoon, we met up with Michelle's parents (who live in France) who very kindly brought with them many other items essential to moving in straight away - bedding, crockery, a coffee machine (second most important item after the bed!), cleaning equipment and so forth. The afternoon was spent cleaning, unpacking and assembling the bed - which nearly got thrown out of the bedroom window several times thanks to some incomprehensible instructions! In the evening, we retired back to Léran (6.3km!) for a very well-earned dinner at Le Rendez-vous restaurant - the first of many enjoyable and delicious meals here with family and friends. And then, back home to enjoy our first sleep in our very comfy new bed in our budding holiday home!
Moved In

Thursday 7 July 2016

More about Montségur

The Chateau de Montségur
Sitting precariously on their hill-top perches and adding an air of ancient mystery to the sky-line, we've been interested in Cathar castles for some time and their presence in and around the Ariège was something of a drawcard for us in choosing this area. The Cathars were a heretic sect in the Middle Ages, considered a threat by the Catholic Church. In the 13th century, the then Pope sought to eradicate the Cathers and ordered their wholesale slaughter. A series of massacres ensued in the Languedoc, largely undertaken by forces from the north. This included the massacre of the entire population of the town of Beziers in 1209. The last remaining Cathars took refuge in the Chateau de Montségur and this became their final stronghold. In 1244, following a five month siege of Montségur, the Cathars - approximately 244 of them - surrendered and were burnt alive in a pyre at the foot of the mountain. A number of legends have developed around the Cathars and the events of the siege at Montségur, linking both to stories about the Holy Grail and the protection of Jesus's bloodline by the Cathars. The lives lost in this brutal event continue to be commemorated every year in a small ceremony on 16 March at the site of the massacre and on its anniversary. Although built on the site of the original Cathar castle, the ruins actually date from a later fortress built to protect the border with Spain.

I can see for miles and miles...

Our first visit to Montségur had been in December 2013. When we arrived, we were surprised to find ourselves surrounded by snow and ice. This added an extra layer of excitement to the steep climb up to the castle, for which we otherwise had perfect conditions -  a crystal clear sunny day with 360 degree views. Below us, the village was covered in snow and locals were sledging with their children on the surrounding slopes. We had spent the previous night in the village in l'Auberge de Montségur (now l'Hôtel Costes) where we dined in a cosy stone-walled restaurant with a roaring log fire, walls hung with medieval tapestries, cats for company, and the best coq au vin ever!

Looking down onto the village of Montségur in the snow

The best seat in the house!

Wednesday 6 July 2016

Salvador Dalí Theatre-Museum

Okay, so it's not in the Ariège and it's not even in France. But we thought it was worth posting a few photos from the Salvador Dalí Theatre-Museum in Figueres in Spain as it's a little bit unusual. We visited the museum the day after our house hunt in December 2014 on the way back to Barcelona airport. Figueres is Dalí's home town and The Dali Theatre-Museum is the biggest collection of Dalí's work in the world. He is even buried in its crypt! By the way, the captions below the photos are not the names of the artworks - although they could be!

Outside the Theatre Museum

Car in the Courtyard

Feet on the Ceiling

Abraham Lincoln's head  or the back of a naked lady?

Monday 4 July 2016

The House Hunt

The hunt for our Ariège house took place one afternoon in December 2014. That's right. We spent just one half day on something that involves a significant investment and a major decision - and in an area that we barely knew. But it's pretty hard to do something like this when you live on the other side of the world, so we just had to get on with it. We had arranged with an estate agent to look at a few properties in a village called La Bastide sur l'Hers (no, we'd never been there before) and one apartment in Mirepoix itself. On the day itself, we spent the morning driving from Barcelona airport to La Bastide sur l'Hers, relying on sat nav to get there. The sat nav struggled with both the route and Spanish pronounciation, and its attempts at Spanish road names and numbers would dissolve into unhelpful mumbling dribble - rather like my own Spanish in fact! Nevertheless, after a few wrong turns, being led in true sat nav fashion to a "route barrée", and resorting at times to a traditional map, we arrived for our appointment with minutes to spare - nothing like doing things by the skin of your teeth! We had chosen La Bastide sur l'Hers principally because of its property prices and because it offered the opportunity to view a handful of properties in one place, thus minimising the need for any further tearing around in the car. Places tend not to look their best in winter and it was a cold, grey day but we were pleasantly surprised by the village and certainly not put off - it had a pretty river flowing through it and a few shops, surprising for a village with only around 700 inhabitants, 10% of whom, we were told, are English (which means a native English speaker). 


The Hers River in La Bastide sur L'Hers
In the end, we most liked a village house that had been partly renovated (by Brits!) but still needed some, but not too much, work done on it. Or so we thought. Anyway, as dusk began to draw in and the air turned even chiller, our kind estate agent guided us to our overnight accommodation, Les Minotiers hotel in Mirepoix, where we were able to relax and reward ourselves with some of our French favourites - pastis, wine, calvados and good food - after a hard day's work.

Refreshments in Mirepoix

Saturday 2 July 2016

Our First Time

Winter View from Chateau de Montségur

Our Ariège adventure began in December 2013 with a spontaneous decision to visit the Chateau de Montségur while visiting family in France. Blown away by the beauty of the surrounding countryside, the medieval charm of nearby town, Mirepoix, and the low cost of property, we decided to look into buying an affordable house to give us a foothold in this stunning area. Read on for more beautiful photos and to catch up with our project over the last two and a half years.