We have spent five days in Montazels in a gorgeous house one of my workmates and her husband purchased (I think) about 10 years ago. Every year, they travel here to have a working holiday, dutifully restoring bedrooms, living areas, the kitchen, floors and bathrooms. Via social media, I have watched, and read about, their hard work, triumphs and difficulties in renovating a house in a country across the other side of the world. At last, we have finally had the opportunity to stay here, due to Jo’s very very generous offer whenever I have seen her at work, and Steve’s helpful logistics in the end to get us here!

As I write this, we have children of all ages knocking on the door for Halloween; thankfully we were prepared for this and bought some Kinder “Schoko-Bons” at the supermarket today!

You need a car to stay in this part of France. Some of the villages are close by and we walked between Montazels and Couiza a few times. But we also had a couple of driving trips to explore further afield.

Montazels is a commune of approximately 550 people and no shops. There is a church whose bells peal from 0700 to 2200 on the hour and every half hour. This morning the bell rang 20 times at 7am (even in my half sleep, my brain was counting). The church is 10 meters away. It was locked when we went to explore, but the outside is impressive none-the-less. In front of our house, there is a fountain; it currently holds no water, but does from time to time. It’s pretty old – in 1785 Parish priest Jean Bernard Carles built it with 3 dolphins who spout the water when there’s water to be spouted! We have walked up and down most streets in the village and even explored the cemetery with some very impressive, and I’m sure expensive, crypts and mausoleums. As you may have seen on my socials, Rod found a baguette vending machine around the corner; 1.40 euro goes in – a fresh baguette comes out to one very satisfied customer!

Couiza is one of the neighbouring villages with a population twice the size of Montazels. We walked there in no more than 10 minutes. Couiza has shops, restaurants and bakeries. I managed to discuss the type of cortisone cream I was after with the local pharmacist, who was very helpful and even though he said, “I only speak a little English” – his English was great and as we all know, my French is non-existent! The French people we have interacted with have been incredibly friendly and kind. They are very self-deprecating when it comes to their English language skills, but in the most part, this has been completely uncalled for. The French tend to have a bad reputation when it comes to dealing with tourists, especially those lacking skills in the French language, but this is not our experience.

Esperaza is another neighbouring village twice the size of Couiza. We only visited twice, with the car, for groceries at the Intermache. It’s a very large supermarket and most of you would love pottering about there: everything from fresh pastries to fresh fruit to a few aisles of wine. In Australia, we like the “International Foods” section of Woolworths. Well, we love the “International Foods” sections in supermarkets here too! We have all been craving some Asian food – any type of curry, anything at all really! We have so far picked up some supplies: sweet chilli sauce, soy sauce, ramen cup noodles, jasmine rice (although it’s called Thai Rice), yellow curry, red curry (it was the hottest curry I’ve ever eaten) and Oyster sauce.

Alet-les-Bains is a ten minute drive and its’ population is about 350. It is quite famous for its’ abbey. The abbey is a ruin, but many walls and parts of the ceiling are intact. It was built about 1000 years ago and became a cathedral in 1318. Alet-les-Bains also boasts a (small) Casino!

Rennes-les-Bains is about as small as Alet-les-Bains, but it is a 15 minute drive through some very green and hilly countryside. I imagine the population of this village explodes in the warmer weather due to it being famous for naturally occurring thermal springs.

Mirepoix is a good hours drive from Montazels and boasts a population of over 3000 people. We spent a couple of hours here having lunch (ham and cheese crepe for Rod, chèvre and honey crepe for me, burger with mushrooms and chips for Hamish), then a scoop of ice cream for the boys. Mirepoix has a huge cathedral (Cathedral of St Maurice) and is well known for Tudor style buildings and reminded us of Dinan (also in France) from our pre-covid trip.

Carcassonne is the biggest city in the region with nearly 50 000 inhabitants. We visited for one reason: Carcassonne Castle, which is mostly intact, parts of it dating from the 12th century. To visit the castle is free but to explore via the 3km of ramparts cost us 26 euro (free for under 18 year olds!). As you may remember from prior blogs, Rod has a fear of heights (acrophobia) and Hamish and I think he did a great job walking around the ramparts with some steep, narrow winding staircases and some areas of height. The castle itself is very cool and is worth a visit. We still think Dover Castle is our favourite, mostly due to the recency of its use, but Carcassonne certainly would have packed a punch in its day. It also had a very impressive cathedral (St Michael of Carcassonne) whose stained glass windows are my favourite to date.

We have just run out of ‘Schoko-Bons’ for the kids trick and treating, so we’re now offering the citrus meringues we bought at Carcassonne today. The kids are very polite and no-one seems to have minded choosing a meringue over a hard caramel (much like a Werther) which we also scrambled to find. Tomorrow is All Saints Day and a public holiday in France. We have an early start heading for a town in Andorra called Arinsal. This is Hamish’s 3rd micro-nation and I think he can be a guest writer on the next blog.