The river nearly runneth over ....

The normally gentle, crystal clear and beautiful River Cesse is in full flow. It’s the highest I’ve seen it.

13 March 2011

The river exactly a week ago today - one of the many photos I took of this year's Carnaval

While I’ve seen the water going over the passerelle before, I’ve never seen the entire width of the riverbed covered in water. Mind you, in years past the village has flooded - most recently in 1999 when the water was nearly 2 metres deep on the Promenade.  Waaaay higher than it is now - and I hope I don't get to see that.

The wall that dams the river to create the pool has completely gone. The last four years it’s only needed a bit of a touch up – this summer it will have to be rebuilt from scratch. 

I’ll be interesting to see what the natural river looks like when the water goes down, without the pool there.



This afternoon the sun has come out and it’s mild and humid, but we have four more days of rain forecast so I’m wondering just how high the river is going to come up.


Carnaval de Bize

This year I didn’t frock-up for the Carnival - not only because the theme was Moulin Rouge/Cancan (yikes ....) but because I was away the week running up to the carnival, and also because I'd decided I wanted to be a spectator this year.

Being in the parade, and seeing all the photos after the event, I realised how much you miss out on seeing on the day itself. So this year I got a good view and quite a few photos. Here’s a few of my favourites:

The Carnaval King - why he's on a cow I have no idea. There are no cows anywhere in this region - only grape vines and the odd goat or two!

On the riverbed, getting ready for the ritual burning...

Bonnie and Terry (in the frills and bloomers) - real crowd-stoppers!

A float of young 'Scots'  - or at least, young guys who really enjoyed a wee dram or two, wearing home-made kilts and their 'See you Jimmy' hats...!

.... and some kilts definitely being made better than others .. !

The local hunters' float

... complete with a roasting hare... eaten during the parade

Hardly a mouthful

and while Indigo wasn't part of a float, her and her friends dressed for the occasion - wigs and pyjamas.....

A weekend over the border

When I was in Scotland in December, I stayed with friends Issy and George for a couple of days. Now, Issy had a long-planned ‘big birthday’ celebration planned for late February – in Bologna, Italy.

Good ol’ Ryanair – direct flights from Edinburgh and as I discovered, also cheap flights from Girona in Spain. A group of friends had been invited and it all had the makings for a beaut weekend away. 

Had I driven, it would have meant at least a 9 hour drive on my own, over the Alps in winter (!) and arriving exhausted. The much better alternative was to drive south for two hours to Girona, leave the car at the airport and fly direct to Bologna. And that’s what I did.

However, the birthday celebrations changed somewhat a couple of months before the event, although the invitees were only informed of the change of plans fairly close to the date. 

It became a marriage celebration! George and Issy decided to get married the day before flying out to Girona. 

It was to be a little secret and a huge surprise for the group when everyone arrived in Bologna .... but somehow (someone?) let the cat out of the bag! So we had something even more exciting to look forward to - and it was a fabulous weekend with a great bunch of people. 

Some people I already knew (Austen and Fiona – great to catch up again), and I met some other friends and family. We were a group of just 14, just a good number for the wedding feast at an amazing restaurant in downtown Bologna - the Trattoria Battibecco. 

A few of the lovely dishes we were served - many of them, but just the right size, and absolutely delicious. Ditto the wine selection that was served with each course - George was so impressed that I've taken photos of some of the labels and he's going to try to buy some of the same when they get back to Scotland.

... and after all that food - out comes the 'SURPRISE' birthday cake ... because it was of course Issy's birthday as well!

Bologna itself is a stunningly beautiful city, full of squares, churches, and nearly 40 kms or covered walkways (porticos). 

The first day was cold but brilliant sunshine … perfect for sitting out in the main square, soaking up the sun and nursing our collective sore heads, and regrouping for the main event of the weekend. 

When I ordered a hot chocolate at a cafe, I'd forgotten about the European can-stand-a-spoon-in-it style. Yum ... but soooo rich. Four of us couldn't finish it!

Some of the sights in the piazza

The Sala Borsa Library, with its transparent floor tiles through which you can see old Roman ruins.

The city is also known for its fine food, and I came away with a few bits and pieces. Including an aged bottle of balsamic vinegar and a rather large wedge of Parmesan cheese. 

All of which of course you can buy here in France and just about anywhere else, but everything looked so good in the shops and so they became my little ‘souvenirs’ and taste of Italy. 

The fruit and vegetables - and particularly fresh garden peas - looked gorgeous. and had I not been worried about a strict 15kg luggage allowance, I would have grabbed a couple of kilos of those to bring back too! I was a little annoyed to get to the airport to find my bag only weighed 13kg – I could have brought back a veritable vegetable bonanza ….

The whole weekend was not entirely taken up with celebrating, eating, drinking, and generally being merry. We covered a fair bit of ground on foot, took in the Mediaeval Museum, did a jump-on jump-off bus tour of the city, and – perhaps a little optimistically after a big night out – decided to climb the tallest tower in Bologna. 

The city is famous for all its towers – at one stage about 180, though not nearly so many still standing today. Apparently, although the towers were initially as defensive lookouts by families who lived in compounds, but eventually they sometimes also became status symbols and people tried to out-do each other. 

The famous twin towers (the taller, the Asinelli Tower at 97 metres, is the one we climbed) were apparently the result of two families’ competition. 

Unfortunately, the shorter of the towers – the Garisenda - wasn’t built on a solid foundation, began to tilt and was never built to full height. Seems there was a clear winner in that particular race! It now leans more than the Tower of Pisa.

There are more than 500 steps to the top, fortunately with resting platforms on the way up. Getting up was hard enough – coming down on jelly legs nearly as bad….. The pay-off was the amazing views over the city – despite the drizzly rain.

Looking down on the smaller 'leaning tower' from the top of the Asinelli

Looking down into the void - the interior wooden stair

About a third of the way up - looking out at the neighbouring leaning tower

A good view of those badly laid and sinking foundation stones!

A full-on and thoroughly enjoyable weekend, spent in the company of some great people.

A walk along the Canal du Midi

While we’ve been having some gorgeous mild and sunny weather recently, Tuesday’s walk along the Canal du Midi between Paraza and Ventenac was a return to blustery winter. Chilly, but a really lovely walk – a group of about 35 brave souls.  

Jean-Pierre, who lives in Ventenac, gave us a bit of history about this bridge – 

– the first aqueduct to be built in France (completed in 1676) and the oldest structure of its kind in the world. It is one of three original aqueducts created by Pierre-Paul Riquet during the building of the canal from 1667 to 1681. 

Paul Riquet is the engineer and canal-builder responsible for the construction of the Canal du Midi – nearby Beziers’ favourite son where there are statues and many streets etc named after him in both Beziers and the region.

A nice surprise was to come across two well-known residents of the Canal at Ventenac - Australian black swans! They’re obviously very well looked after here and so have no need to venture far. This was a nice little ‘touch of home’ as they’re both the state and bird emblem of Western Australia.

  At the moment, there’s a catastrophe in the making along the Canal – a disease of the famous plane trees that line the edges. A large number of them are suffering from a highly contagious disease by the awful name of canker stain disease. 

The disease is always fatal so many of the trees are marked with a ring of bright green paint, earmarked for destruction. It’s so contagious that they are being burned where they are felled. Apparently no decision has yet been made as to what to replace them with. 

There’s a strain of resistant plane trees being developed and a suggestion that the replanting will be with a mixture of different varieties to lessen the likelihood of another whole species being affected by a virus. 

Last weekend was the Aligot evening, held every year by the village of Agel. I did write about it a few years ago – I didn’t go last year but decided to this time. Because it’s proved so popular, the venue has been moved to the very large hall in the nearby village of La Caunette. And there were hundreds there. 

Nice to see that the same man is doing the aligot – just this time using a much bigger pot! I caught up with him outside, stirring the mix ….




and then shortly afterwards when he (and several others to help him lift it) came inside, doing the ‘stretching’ with the paddles in front of a very appreciative audience. 

The starter and main are duck-based. The starter was green salad and portions of shredded duck. Or minced duck I should say. It's all the meat that's torn off the carcasses. And then the main pieces of confit served with the aligot.

Delicious, but a little goes a very long way.....