Misty Mountain Hop

Well we had a fantastic weekend in Villefranche de Conflent. It is a walled village in the middle of the Pyrenees - there's only really two streets so you feel quite at home very quickly! After our first walk around we thought we'd see if my French hotel reservation had been successful, only to find that our auberge was shut until 4pm. We decided to take Le Petit Train Jaune further into the mountains to Font Romeu which was wonderful. You can sit in an open air carriage which is especially exhilarating when you go over a couple of rather high bridges! Our plan was to spend 90 minutes in Font Romeu before getting the train back, but when we arrived it turned out that Font Romeu station is actually nowhere near Font Romeu. A 5km hike was out of the question so we meandered around a couple of the nearer villages. There wasn't much around, but we did get to see the world's biggest solar furnace at Odeillo from above. It was VERY impressive!

We sat inside on our return train, and checked into our hotel on our return. Yes it was reserved! We changed and headed out for some food. It turned out that only two restaurants were open in Villefranche de Conflent and I think we were lucky to get in either of them by being very English and eating a bit earlier than the locals. It was the best meal of the trip so far. Fantastic food, beautifully cooked, good local wine and very reasonable too.

The next day we first went to some nearby underground caves, Les Grandes Canalettes. They were pretty good, although we got stuck behind a Spanish tour group and there was a musical section with a "light show" which did nothing to enhance the formations. After a crepe for lunch, we ventured to Fort Liberia. This is halfway up the mountain that Villefranche de Conflent lies on, and was built to further protect the town. It's quite a hard walk uphill to get to though and our first stop at the top was for an ice-cream. We then followed the mapped guided tour around and took in the views. It was certainly a good place to build a fort as you can see down three valleys and you could probably see an enemy from miles away. Alas it wasn't such a clear day for us.

We had a final look around the village and bought a few presents before we were due to catch the train home. It was a marvellous weekend, and all the better because we more or less got by completely in French. I'm definitely understanding a lot more now, although I still think Darren understands more than I do. And we leave France in three days time!

We're definitely ready to move on now. We're trying to plan for the next few months, and it's getting a bit fraught. I've e-mailed a few WWOOFs and not had any reply which is very frustrating. So we don't know where our last stay of the year will be yet...