Beside the seaside beside the sea - Pyrenees 6

At last there were no trees to fight you or hide the views of where you were going. True, there was some steep scrambling but the views were always going to be worth it, even though they only told us how far we had come and how nearer we were to the destination. Why, we even passed people with toddlers, walking up from a car park.

It was not so easy to find a soft spot for a picnic. Trees, whilst being awkward things along a trail with their roots ready to trip you, their branches ready to lash you, their fallen brethren causing you to bend under or climb over, do at least give shade from the sun. The problem was there were so few trees today. This was a short walk but the day was quite warm and Banyuls provided immediate refreshment, after a short visit to two station buildings. The first one was closed and used for alternative business, but along the line was a new structure had been built, but still in the SNCF style of rural stations.






Going via the railway station for information to travel the next day to Coulliours, we found the Hotel les Elmes, a proper seaside place, small and almost on the beach. That was enough for Ray and David who swam around the bay at least as far as the diving platform. Not me or Bob, though. Warm baths and a change of clothes were as refreshing as it needed to be. There was a reminder of how dangerous bathing can be. While the sea swimmers splashed and dived in the mellow and mild Mediterranean Sea unaware and unaffected by any undertow and cross currents, powerful forces were at work to make dangerous the safest of bathing experiences. Bob was gripped by a strong vacuum that held his back against the smooth porcelain of the bath in which he was relaxing. He could be there now but for some frantic wriggling.

Before dinner, a stroll over the hill to Banyuls itself. A busy seaside resort and the start of the GR10 which inspires the Iron Man to put forward a proposal to walk its entire length. Mmm.

Once more the food was an issue with a wine list pricey as well. The style was quite formal, with the dishes presented by the waiter announcing the name as it was served to table. There was not enough food, delicious and tasty as it was. The problem was ameliorated by the interjection of a cheese course, at our request and for which we had to pay extra, but it completed a very pleasant meal. The main course was fish, and not meat, so both Dave and Bob were a little disappointed. And we had another night to survive.



The following day we visit Coulliours with a prospect of moules et frites.

Pyrenees 5 - Ceret

Leaving Amelie les Bains on a hot Sunday morning was made better by having a good breakfast in the buffet style.

However, we were soon wandering around, cursing the trees while trying to find the correct path. Familiar territory in unfamiliar territory. The promise of a village with a bar which was approximately half way and at which we would arrive around lunchtime was a clear fillip to our progress. The guide notes warned of dogs on the outskirts of the village, but each of us has a weapon to deal with most canine nuisances. We were primed for the worst. It didn’t happen. I mean both expectations. The dogs were big and noisy but well fenced. The bar was shut.

Madame, who appeared at an upstairs window, was not to be moved to open up for us.

To say we were downhearted would be absolutely on the mark. A picnic was taken in the shade and the Sunday papers were available. There was a little further track-searching in quite an open area. Tractors and caterpillar tracked vehicles had been re-arranging things, but the markers and the road were found and Ceret beckoned on a hot afternoon.

The bar of choice was spread out under big plane trees and the rugby on the wide screen was being enjoyed by the locals. Toulouse were winning their semi final much to everyone’s joy. It called for two grandes bieres. Bob had discovered un Monaco which is like a French equivalent to a lager and lime, with a lemonade top. It’s quite sweet and very pink to look at. The pink comes from some grenadine syrup, which will no doubt ensures its sweetness along with the added 7-up.

The hotel immediately upset the more carnivorous members as it was to be eaten away from the hotel at an Italian restaurant, which was in a busyish square. So we turned up with our voucher and we were fed quite well. There was wine of course.

Another rest day, except for the homme de fer. He was off after breakfast .


Now Dave had cracked the secrets of the technical tee- shirt there was no holding him. The shirt came with an instruction leaflet which he had lost or left. It could be worn cool side in side on hot days outside or alternatively warm side inside on cool days outside. We finally discovered that the labels were of different colours depending which way around it went.
With apologies to Longfellow, this summed up his quandary:

He had brought the shirt of Paramo.

On the walk he chose to wear it,

Wore it with the smooth side inside,

Wore it with the rough side outside.

He, to get the cool side inside,

Put the rough side warm side outside.

He, to get the cold side outside,

Put the warm side rough side inside.

That's why he put the smooth side inside,

Why he put the rough side outside,

Why, he’d turned it inside outside.

Dave eventually joined us for lunch in the place below where further technology was explained and tried.

Ceret has a history of being associated with artists. In particular Pablo Picasso, who lived there for a part of his life. The walls of the hotel were covered with prints and posters which reflected the artistic influences in the town. The museum had an exhibition of Hungarian fauvist paintings as well as featuring several of the ceramics of Picasso. Each of us in turn made our way around the cultural gem of Ceret. Art and modern art are challenges and I know little about it to feel safe when confronted by some of it. I suppose feeling insecure and challenged is a fair response to some of it. A common reaction that I am happy with is that I can find some art amusing. I enjoyed the use of colour and close examination of the surfces of the paintings showed greens and blues used in painting faces which on distance created blends in the eye. I enjoyed the simplicity and use of colour which being colour blind is some what ironic.

The next day would see us taken by taxi to begin the final stage and the walk to Banyuls sur Mer.

A fete awaits you - a diversion

“The whole of France will be playing music tonight,”

So said a staff member to a group of English guests at the hotel.

It was true. Since 1982, on the day of the summer solstice, the Fête de la Musique has been taking place every year in France. It simply means that anyone that can play music is invited to do so, for free, any place they wish. Musicians will perform everywhere: cafes, street corners, public buildings and more. Generally they are invited to play in open space. In other words, on this day you might hear on street corners highly acclaimed musicians who usually perform at the opera. The event's original motto was "sharing, diversity and creativity". Well, so much for intentions.

Although I didn’t see any opera stars unless they were underplaying themselves, there was some sharing, diversity and creativity. Stages were erected in almost every square we encountered but it was on the 21^st June that we came across the music.

In Amelie les Bains where we were staying, it was at first a bit of a disappointment. Two bars had singers but only with club style multitrack accompaniments - a kind of karaoke. Both bars were close to each other and so it was possible at a point equidistant between both bars to hear the worst of both worlds.

But then just as it could not get worse, it got better. Outside the third bar was a live band comprising three saxophones, two trumpets, a trombone, a lady and a drummer. It was the drummer which caught my fascination. His kit was set upon a unique home built trolley, the five wheels of which came from a child’s pushchair (two), a porter’s trolley (two) and a child’s bicycle (one). Once he had arrived at the next pitch, he chocked the child’s bike wheel with a block of wood. He removed a folding bar stool from the left hand side of the kit and placed it behind the drum kit. He extracted his sticks from a basket at the right hand side and he was ready. The exact role of the lady, dressed in gold, as opposed to the red and black of the musicians, was not clear. She contributed some percussion support for the drummer whether he was in need of it or not.

They played a rare mixture from what sounded like local folk tunes and they finished their first set with Randy Newman’s “You Can Keep Your Hat On”. A young man in the small crowd gave an impromptu and energetic strip, with his shorts ending up above him on the bar's sun awning. Not wearing a hat, however, he kept his pants on.

The band moved on. Their progress was now being barred by a dozen or so older people who clearly wanted none of the pop stuff they had just heard. The band was stopped and they old gang of band hi jackers wanted cha cha. A quick chat amongst the band while the drummer set out his kit, a brief consultation of their A6 note books, and the band were off. The dancers shimmied and shuffled, the watchers tapped and swayed to the music.

After this initial opening and being aware of the dancing intent of the crowd, the band continued. The dance this time was for individuals. It reminded me a little of the Lambeth walk. It was led by a dapper man with black shiny shoes and neat clothes. His seemingly weightless feet slipped and stepped while his arms and dainty hands with fingers pointing kept the upper body balanced. Others joined him but they ensured he kept the centre of the stage. The others were of lesser degrees of elegance and style. Next to him was a large man dressed in shorts and a sky blue vest. He wore chunky sandals. He was the sartorial opposite of Monsieur Dapper. Needless to say the sartorial spectrum was not as wide as the terpsichorean one.

But he was en fete. He had captured the moment.

The band remained in their spot and played on. It was a treat to be a witness to such exuberance which was as good humoured as it was entertaining. I returned to the hotel.

Ahh.. Amelie les Bains Pyrenees 4

Losing our way is one thing, a collective but tedious addition to the adventure, but losing each other is another challenge entirely. We had left Prats de Mollo by four by four and taken to the end of a rough road which marked the start of the trail to Amelie les Bains.

It was hot.

It was when we came to ridge that the effects of heat got to us. Dave had the idea to walk along the ridge but no one was eager to go with him. The iron man was not to be swayed by the majority and so he set off as we took then lower path. Now there are some things that should have been discussed before we parted company. We should have of course checked that we had our phones, that there was a signal and that our phones were switched on. It was only later discovered that, when we tried to ring Dave, his phone was in his luggage in the taxi going to Amelie les Bains and of course switched off. The only certainty we had was extremely vague. We would simply meet were the paths would meet.

Naturally this was not as easy as we assumed. We three, in what could be called the main party, began to become more sure that things were not as simple as we thought when we set off. That feeling that we were not on the right path and that the path would not cross the path that Dave was on was becoming a fact rather than just a feeling. We decided to climb up to meet the ridge where Dave should be or should have been or should be on his way too. Such was our certainty.

Instead of a gentle stroll along a contour we were now scrambling across them and they were very close together. When we reached the top, clearly indicated by a marker we could see nor hear any sign of Dave. That’s when we realised the important and significant impact a mobile phone could have in these situations. But it only remained a mental realisation. We shouted his name. He shouted back that he had heard us. In the Canary Islands they have a whistling communication system in the mountains. Silbadors as they are called - the word comes from Spanish verb silbar, meaning to whistle - use four "vowels" and four "consonants" that can be strung together to form more than 4,000 words. We managed only to shout 'Dave'.

We finally spotted him below us and further on. And in time we became one party again. This was very reassuring and also vital as Dave was carrying the tomatoes and cheese for lunch, so we were really relieved to be with him once more.

Our trail craft was something to be pitied. We missed the letter D made out of twigs. The concept was absolutely sound, but rather like a remaindered book, it failed to reach an audience. We did pick up the empty handy tissues pack left by Dave but which we dismissed as merely litter.

And so on to Amelie les Bains, a spa town full of old, recovering people in varying states of decrepitude who were there for the treatment. The arrival of four more went unnoticed, except our initial treatment worked immediately.

The hotel was large and quite busy with a coach party from England. Dinner was perfectly rewarding and met with all round approval. It was a buffet. Now there are two approaches to eating at a buffet a word which signifies that there is plenty of food. One approach is to graze. Start with a bit of salad, go on to a bowl of soup, have a fish course, followed by a bit of meat and vegetables, move on to a pieces of cheese and round it off with a mix of desserts. Alternatively, you can load your plate with everything and just stuff yourself. Some of us opted for the former approach and one of went for the latter; such was Bob’s haste that his carrots turned out to be sausages.

After the welcome blow out, we walked into the main street to enjoy the Fete de la Musique

of which I have written already.

A bit of a Prat fall Pyrenees 3

We do look exhausted.

We had just reached a height reference and position marker after another period of being slightly off course.

No goldcrest this time, but one stream crossing a tractor trail seems like any other. And the remains of farm buildings are not supposed to be of the type to flummox the Time Team. We do not run to geophysical magnometers, although Dave is probably now searching the publications for one with a hydrating system. But more of the technical stuff later.


The weather was glorious. As we travelled east, the daily growing of afternoon cloud was being outpaced, and the sun burned down. We had plenty of water. We needed it too. In the afternoon, we spotted a number of large birds circling above. Ray named them as buzzards despite other less informed references to eagles or vultures. He counted twenty nine circling at one point. The heat was taking its toll, but we were not buzzard fare yet.


Prats de Mollo la Preste was our first French village and it was a place of great charm. For one thing, it was busy. There were squares and bars of the type we had hungered for and people going about what is normal for an afternoon in Prats de Mollo la Preste. We settled for the bar and drank our post walk beers, the welcome only being moderated by the thought of how expensive they were. Our hotel was tucked inside the town walls, and had its own square.
We were here for two days with an option to take a local walk, an idea which was evaporating as the beer went down.

The hotel was poor. Our room for two nights was not even square. Well, it was an old building but there was a serious health and safety issue with the wall that separated the bedroom from the ensuite facilities. I do not think a wall papered glass partition from floor to ceiling would be passed by many planning authorities, certainly in England. To make the probability of falling through the glass easier, you had to climb past the shower cubicle base to reach the hand basin and the toilet and of course climb back to get out. The addition of water to the floor and the task became more of a thrill.

There was plenty more to entertain us all; the castle with its amazing optional tunnelled entrance; the street market the morning after we arrived; a church of some history; public laundry facilities and a link with the Spanish Civil War with the town hosting a large refugee camp in 1939 of Spanish refugees where now stands an enclave of retired people homes.

However much it had to offer us as a diversion, the food at the hotel was not up to the demands of four hungry men. The general suspicion was that the proprietor was fleecing the organisers by offering us a scant menu which was much less than the fifteen Euro expectations. Athough meat in the form of a chicken leg was eaten, there was no real bulk, no sustenance and the carnivores were on the prowl. The food crisis, or lack of food crisis was resolved the following day by taking a long and memorable lunch in sublime surroundings. We were fed by man whose love was the process of preparing and serving us lunch. Even the Coleman Hawkins was part of the feel.

The stay ended with a pre Fete de la Musique event when local students and their teachers encouraged music to emerge with a range of ability from a spread of instruments. My clumsy spilling of a pastis was my noisy addition to proceedings, a pastis, however, that was quickly replaced and at no extra charge.

The sun will come out to Mollo Pyrenees 2

In the style of all films that have animals as the star, the gold crest was trying to tell us something. The tiny beautiful creature was quite unafraid of three gawping ramblers as it sang away to us, not trying at all to escape. What it was saying we all too soon realised when Ray had a look at the map. We were off the trail. Not lost, but simply off course.

The route is marked along its course. This bit was following the GR10, so the marking was a miniature flag of Poland, a white strip above a red one. The only problem is that they are sometimes on trees and sometimes on rocks. Occasionally they not very obvious and they are at irregular distances and of course it dawns on us from time to time that we have not seen one for quite a distance. This is unsettling news because it means going back to the last one and correcting our error. This is what the gold crest was trying to tell us.

We were making our way from Setcases to Mollo, another Spanish hill village. The weather was bright although it clouded over as they day and we progressed and our picnic lunch was held at 5200 feet, as calculated by Dave’s altimeter. But the climbing was behind us now, with Setcases, our start point, at a height of 4166 feet. It seemed much more of a climb at the time. But it was downhill from now, a fact I celebrated with two falls in rapid succession. Soon it was the Chupa Chup moment. Above Mollo we sat sucked our Chupa Chups trying to buy time, before we were sucked into the whirlwind lifestyle we would find in the streets of Mollo.

We needn’t have bothered.

Mollo was shut. There was a bar, but not the pavement type we could relax into. We entered the hotel which was favourable. We enjoyed four Estrella. We strolled the streets. It looked, if the appearance of the huge beams of wood that had arrived on the trailer of a lorry, as if Mollo was next in line for the Setcases makeover in wood and Ronseal. We soon ran out of diversions in trying to fill the time between what was then until 8.30, the time for ‘soper’. Buying the picnic would take up sometime.

As in Setcases, the shops were to a casual observer closed, but the general grocer’s opened, as we must have gazed so forlornly through the darkened window. Perhaps that was the trick.

My Spanish was challenged to order café and hot chocolate. It tuned up, so I considered it a success. When ‘soper’ did arrive it had a mixed reception. The red wine was chilled. This was only rectified by the third bottle. The carnivore received a sad sausage accompanied by white beans. His humour was not lifted when the sad sausage was rearranged to look like a smiley sausage.

Breakfast made up for the limited success of the night before. Omelettes, which solely by their location must have been Spanish omelettes, tomato bread, fruit, cold meats and yoghurt were a good start. Some fresh bread that must rank as the driest in Europe was bought on the morning as we set off for Prats de Mollo La Preste which is in France. How you tell the fresh bread from the stale must be a skill in itself. I have never looked forward to French bread with so much zeal.

Setcases Pyrenees 1

After two and half hours of travelling in a taxi from Perpignan, we arrived in Setcases which is actually in Spain. I have never spoken Spanish in earnest let alone in Spain, but the task is made easier by simply knowing three key pieces of Spanish vocabulary. The words for beer, for four and for please. The rest just followed.

Setcases was empty, not deserted but far from neglected though. The buildings were all in good restored condition and bristling with new timber. If Ronseal had had the job of wood preservation then Setcases shouted rather than said what it says on the tin. A small channelled stream flowed down through the tidy village but that was the only thing moving. There were no cafes or open shops or people.

The hotel, of which we were the only residents, was comfortable. As we walked in we were greeted by the fact we were not in a comfortable language zone. But there were people. Three people met us. An old man sat at a table while his wife, one supposes, was cutting up huge mushrooms into bite sized chunks. The mushroom was a bolet, a speciality of the area. Indeed, at the end of summer, Setcases holds a festival for the bolets. Either there is little else to do but have a mushroom festival or they are very special mushrooms indeed. We probably saw and ate later what was on the table. A young coloured girl of an engaging laugh was indicated by the older woman to show us to the rooms. Later she served us beers and later still served us our meal. The meal was welcome and quite filling. There was a hot, clear, salty soup with macaroni which was followed by a salad of tomatoes with olives. And there was meat which kept the most carnivorous of our company happy. It satisfied the prediction made by Bob when he spotted the sharp knives set out on the table. And there was wine, local and young but, oh, there was wine. And the cheerful Columbian who found us always a cause of laughter.

We were curious why Setcases was so neat and clean and yet so empty of people. Even the bread shop was closed on the morning we left. But there was activity of a distinctly commercial and possibly tourist nature. A small square above the through road was setting up for the day. Tables and chairs were being set by staff who also were of Columbian stock. Behind the tables were a shop and a bar where at a price we obtained our lunchtime picnic. It was distinctly laid out for tourists and not the local village needs. It reminded me of the gift shops tacked on the end of National Trust properties or food craft centres encountered in Scotland. Quality wrappings, tins and boxes were on shelf display containing the best of local produce. We bought a range of suitable foods. There was bread, cheese at a price, bread and water. We also bought Cupa Chups. And so we left the square, descended past the hotel, crossed the road and began the climb out of Setcases and headed off towards Mollo.

Proof that Setcases can be busier than we witnessed