The Bus That Was a Train

The trip to Cerberes was so memorable that I’m going to skip Tuesday and get us to Wednesday when we again took the ONE Euro bus down the coast, getting off at the town before Cerberes, the very popular Coulioure.

When we passed by it on Monday and I saw the castle guarding the bay, and most of the passengers getting off there, I worried that we had made the wrong choice by going on to Cerberes. Nope. It was worth it. And anyway, on Wednesday we got our chance at the town with the castle.

On the way there, a nineteen-year-old boy from Germany boarded the bus, a hitchhiker. He sat right behind us with his backpack, and the couple behind him, Brits, started a conversation with him. His adventures sounded a lot like Mary’s and mine way back when, so finally I turned around and introduced us, explaining that 50 years ago we, too, had been hitchhiking all over France.

“Really?” He was amazed (his English was good), and I smiled, realizing that he saw us as two fairly old ladies, not two young girls.

I told him about my nephew in Germany whose mother, my sister, won’t let him hitchhike even though he, too, is nineteen.

He laughed and said his mother didn’t want him to, either. He has to call her twice a day!

The same winding road dropped Mary and me on a corner above the bay at about 12:30. Then we walked around the beautiful Mediterranean port with colors on colors on the buildings. A lot more tourists were here, making it more crowded, but the ice cream was good and the scenery superb.

Actually, though the ice cream was fine, the girl serving up the cones needed a course in customer relations, especially before summer arrives with even more tourists. We met so few crabby people that it was always a surprise when we did.

Another thing we didn’t meet in spite of dire warnings in all travel articles: Bed bugs. None, though we stayed in some really cheap places and also some pretty classy ones.

And another thing: Thieves, especially gypsy children lying in wait to slash open our backpacks when we weren’t looking. None. Only nice people.

I know you’ll enjoy the pictures - shops, castle, boats, view from the queen's room, me eating an apple which I did a lot since they were so full of flavor.

Historically, Coulioure was a major port, exporting (like Cerberes) honey, wine, fruit, cheese, and a variety of other things. Kind of makes your mouth water, doesn’t it? Its products were so plentiful, and the location so exquisite, that it changed hands a jillion times over the centuries. Romans had it, then Spain, then the Mallorca part of France (when Mallorca was a part of France), and finally in the 1700s, France got it permanently.

In the 1400s, gunpowder and heavier artillery made it imperative to fortify the castle more strongly. This story of war changing lives and nations was repeated so often wherever we went, that I would look around at the peaceful countryside where, now, everyone co-exists without throwing stones or grenades, and wish the head honchos would get a clue. Peace can be more lucrative than war.

The picture of the port from on high was taken from the queen’s rooms in the castle. I’m sure she loved sitting by the window embroidering or whatever, looking out at the water and ships. Did the ladies (or even the men) ever get hot enough to go swimming? I don’t know, but if I lived then, I surely would have gone in the water, and not with pounds and pounds of silks on, either. Maybe a cotton chemise.

When it was time to leave town, we asked a shopkeeper how to get to the train station. She pointed the way and seemed willing to go along with us except that she'd have to close up her shop to do so. Another great person.

It was quite a hike uphill, and when we got there, the lady at the desk said that the train was actually a bus.

This was beyond my comprehension. I told Mary what she’d said and it didn’t make any more sense to her. Nonetheless, we bought what certainly looked like train tickets (knowing the one euro bus at 7:00 wouldn’t get us back to Perpignan in time for the bus to Ile des Pecheurs) for about six euros each.

Where to catch it? She circled a corner on the map which turned out to be the same corner where the shopkeeper was. Back we trudged, tired after a long day of being tourists.

An older man (maybe even older than us) at the bus stop almost scolded us, saying that the only bus stopping there was the 7:00 one. We showed him our tickets and he scoffed, saying those were train tickets, which we knew already.

There was nothing to do but ignore him and hope for the best. Fortunately, an Irish couple strolled past and provided a nice interlude of English conversation which we hadn’t had for a long time, well, since the German hitchhiker on the bus, but that wasn't the same thing. They were walking back to their son’s home in the next village. Doesn’t that sound fine? Walking along the Mediterranean coastline to a small village where your son has a home?

More people began to arrive at the stop, and then the bus bearing a “ter” sign (the name of that type of train) came, much to my relief.

Here’s what’s odd: The man who tried to make us go away, also boarded the bus that was a train. The winding, winding trip to Perpignan lulled me to sleep and I forgot all about him – until now.

Dinner that night? I knew you’d want to know. Canned cassoulet (beans and sausage) from the little store at Ile des Pecheurs, bread and goat cheese. Superb.

Sybarites in Cerberes

After an unexciting Sunday (except for the sardines) at Ile des Pecheurs, we needed to get going again! I’d walked the quarter mile to the bus stop and discovered that the bus went directly to Perpignan (where we’d decided not to go in Entry 28 because Rivesaltes was “closer”).

For about a Euro, we wended through the narrow streets of Barcares and other tiny towns along the way, whizzed along a few freeways, and finally, after an hour and 15 minutes, squeezed through the busy streets of Perpignan to the train station. Here, we figured we’d find a way to get somewhere, maybe even Spain, by train for the day.

Thank goodness that before we asked about trains, I happened to spy a bright sign shouting “One Euro!” for a regional bus. Curious, I grabbed it while hurrying past, intrigued by anything that’s only one Euro, then stopped to read further.

A map inside showed that for ONE Euro, we could go almost anywhere in the Midi Pyrenees area! The local authorities had decided to make it affordable for any of its citizens (and tourists) to tour all over their beautiful region, and to save the ecology by getting more cars off the road. How delightful a concept! In French, the reason was, “Pour preserver notre planete pour l’avenir de nos enfants.” In English, “To save our planet for the future of our children.”

Eagerly paying our single Euro for each of us, we climbed on a big plush bus headed for Cerberes (pronounced sayr-bear and rhyming with Care Bear), the closest town to the Spanish border. It was heavenly to be traveling without our backpacks. Not only were we free of their weight, but the bulk of them. With seats crammed just a bit too close together, we’d have had to hold the backpacks on our laps and not be able to see over them. As it was, we had a lovely view right in front by the driver. Later, it became a harrowing view, also, but that’s what happens on the “Corniche.”

The Corniche is mountains and cliffs right down to the sea, with the narrow road winding around every curve along the way. The bus is bulky, long and wide. Thank goodness the small cars on the twists and turns saw us early enough to stop and let our exceptional woman driver swing back and forth three or four times to get around the curves.

Heart-stopping, but the view was absolutely beautiful!

Cerberes is only four kilometers from Spain. It’s like stepping into a postcard -- emerald and blue water in the bay, warm clear air, colorful buildings along the quay.

It was once an important trading port, as were the other small towns along the southwestern coast. Grapes, wine, fruit, grains, probably some minerals – all things important to the Romans and, it seems, everyone else because there were frequent wars over who owned what.

We walked up the road toward Spain, going up and up, coming to this odd road where the arrow warns cars that they shouldn’t try the steps. I loved all the blue accents in windows, sky, sign, gate.

After a lot of walking, we needed refreshing. Sitting outside just across from the beach, under a wide shading awning, I coddled myself with a peach melba (ice cream, raspberries, and a fresh peach). Sybaritic living! (The word popped into my head when I asked it for a term describing exactly that feeling. I’m sure I’ve never used it before.)

I imagine that Cerberes gets horribly crowded in the summer, but in April it was still a small town tucked around a small bay, welcoming all the visitors.

Rather than take the woozy-winding bus back to Perpignan, we walked up up up and around that windy (as in wind blowing, not street curving) road to the train station. The train was relaxing and fast, getting us back just in time to catch the 6:10 bus back to Ile des Pecheurs where we had a marvelous, and fashionably late, paella dinner at La Carbica, the local restaurant on the beach where we had the salmon on Saturday.

The paella was pretty much like the postcard picture, stuffed with crayfish, shrimp, octopus, this and that, and rice, and a hundred times better than the sardines had been.

I used to wonder why my mother always described trips by the food she ate.

Shells, Sardines, and Salmon

I’ve been thinking about how little things can make you love or hate a place.

If you are on a tour, the glitches are handled by someone else so all you do is show up, see what you’re told to see, buy a souvenir, take a picture, and get back on the bus.

There’s a story about a woman who went to teach school in Africa. I don’t remember which country, but it’s one with a seashore. That’s an important part of the story. One day a young student brought her a present, a beautiful seashell. The teacher was surprised and pleased.

“How could you get this? The sea is a half day’s walk from here!”

The boy smiled and answered, “Long walk part of gift.”

For me, learning how to get places, making mistakes, stumbling, throwing myself on the mercy of strangers who become friends, that’s part of the travel experience I love perhaps even more than the places visited. Not knowing at the beginning of the day where I will be at the end of the day, how much I will have learned, who I will have met, and what I will have eaten (very important) are what keep me invigorated.

Adventure is not knowing what’s coming.

Like the “Welcome Party” at the timeshare, Ile des Pecheurs. Mary says that all the timeshares in her membership program have welcome parties on Sunday evenings, so we looked forward to the advertised freshly grilled sardines, specialty of the region. Because the timeshare is on an island that used to belong to sardine fishermen, hence “Ile des Pecheurs”, sardines were the logical choice. I had a hard time imagining tiny little fish not slipping through the grill. I had no idea that our sardines were the big tough ones that had escaped fishermen’s nets for several years.

It was a beautiful, warm early evening when we all met in the crowded open-air gathering area where the staff introduced themselves and told about their programs. The first staff person, who was in charge of teen activities, spoke in German. A third of the guests understood. The second staff person, in charge of the pool and exercise room, spoke in French. Another third understood. Those of us who spoke Spanish or English were out of the loop. Kind of odd, but no big deal for us since we weren’t going to use those facilities.

Mary and I were hungry. We both like fish. However, the three sardines handed to us on a paper plate looked more like trout than sardines! There was no bread to help them down, either. From glassy-eyed head to tail, guts and all, we nitted and picked our way through hundreds of tiny bones for a few miniscule pieces of fish. The effort of picking through them used more energy than was gained by eating them.

It amused me to watch the other guests demolish their sardines, everyone but the children pretending to like them, and maybe some actually did. This was the one truly awful meal we had on the whole five week trip.

Afterwards, we visited the little store and stocked up on cheese, crackers, jam, cookies, and fruit, along with a couple of hot baguettes from the on-site bakery.

The day before, Saturday, when we arrived, we hadn’t eaten much all day so walked a hundred yards or so to the beach and a tiny local restaurant. It was only 6:00, early for dinner in France, so it didn’t surprise us that not much was happening there. We would have waited, but really, we were hungry!

An embarrassed waiter said they’d have to call the chef at home, so it would be a half hour or so before the salmon dinner could be served. Fine with us, we told him, and then asked for pieces of the lemon tarte displayed on the counter. He looked puzzled until I explained that Americans often have dessert before dinner. It wasn’t a lie, because these two Americans certainly do!

The tarte was superb – I was an expert on lemon tartes by then. The chef arrived, big and burly, loud and happy to be there even though it was so early. He, too, looked twice at our tartes but the waiter explained to him about the odd habits of some Americans.

Salmon, vegetables, rice and bread – the meal, when it came, was perfection! We took a long time eating and chatting with the waiter and the cook while the sun sank lower in the sky, reflecting its changing colors in the waters of the inlet.

Is it any wonder that we expected more from the “Welcome Party” sardines? Never mind. It’s not important at all, but I thought that since Mary and I still laugh about it, you’d enjoy hearing about that adventure.

A Very Very Long Way

It wasn’t easy getting to Barcares (accent on the first syllable). No-one 30 miles inland had ever heard of it. I was beginning to think it must be an old fishing village with rundown shacks, with our timeshare condo being only marginally more modern.

The train lady in Narbonne affirmed that we could get off the train at Rivesaltes, a tiny dot on the map but seemingly closer to Barcares than Perpignan. We would learn that it isn’t miles, but available transportation, that counts. Everywhere else we’d been, buses were handy and ubiquitous so we assumed . . .

Or we could hitchhike.

The train stopped for about 30 seconds at Rivesaltes. We got off, one person got on, and there we were, facing a tiny closed building, lots of weeds, a falling-over wooden fence, and a dirt path leading to a deserted road. For a Saturday, Rivesaltes was mighty quiet.

Undaunted, we hoisted our backpacks and hiked into the tiny ghost town. When we reached what looked like the town square, we saw two people, a man and a woman, sitting outside a tiny café. Since they were our only choices, we asked if they knew how to get to Barcares.

They exchanged glances, shook their heads, then shrugged their shoulders and the woman answered doubtfully, “It’s a very long way from here.”

That didn’t faze us, so we asked which road to take. The woman pointed across the plaza to one which would take us not only out of town but also past the bus station and the post office. Obviously the narrow one-lane road was a major artery.

“Does the bus go to Barcares?” I asked hopefully, in French, of course.

She didn’t know. Didn’t even know if the bus ran on Saturday. But since she knew of Barcares, that gave us hope that we were in the right area, anyway.

The weather was great, it was only about 1:30, so we had plenty of time. Mary seemed energized by the thought that we might have to hitchhike. I wasn’t enthused, but it often happened like that. When one of us was down, the other was up, so we kept each other going.

The post office and the bus station were deserted. The posted schedules did not list “Barcares” as a destination. Undaunted, we kept walking. And walking. After a couple of miles, we were in a sparse residential area where we found a workman repairing a house.

To be sure we were going in the right direction, I pointed to the road and asked, “Barcares?”

He nodded and then warned that it was a very, very long way away. In the back of my mind was the thought that maybe he’d offer to drive us, but that didn’t happen. Later I completely understood why. Barcares was, indeed, a very very long way.

We were far enough into the country now to hitchhike. I wrote "Barcares, s'il vous plait" on a large piece of paper that we held that behind us as we kept walking and holding out our thumbs. Four miles later, we gave up. We were at a bus stop. A schedule suggested that a bus might come in about 45 minutes.

To our surprise, a young woman stopped her car and asked where we were going. When we said, “Barcares,” her face fell and I could tell it was still “a very very long way.” But she could take us to “the large highway”. We thought maybe she meant the one we could see not far away, so thanked her, but stayed put.

Eventually, a white van pulled up. It was the bus! The driver opened the door and I asked if he went to Barcares. That started a lively discussion among the three female passengers of a certain age, one of whom took charge of us, motioning us to get on! Get on!

We got on, paid our fare, and she and the driver managed to get through to us that down the way we could transfer to a bus which would take us to Barcares! Hosanna!

It was a very very long ride to the transfer place, about an hour. The lady in charge and the others were going to the big shopping center at the stop. But first, to make sure we got to the right place, our leader walked us across a four-lane highway to the bus stop, pointed to the posted schedules, told the others waiting that we were going to Barcares, and then hurried back to join her friends.

While Mary amused herself stomping on the ants rampaging the shelter, I asked a quiet young man sitting opposite if he knew where “Ile des Pecheurs” (our timeshare) was. He did! It’s farther still than Barcares, but the bus actually went there. He would show us where to get off! I'm using a lot of exclamation points because it had been a very very long day!

Immense relief flooded me. We would be all right! It was now about 5:00 and I’d been wondering . Not worrying, just wondering. OK, worrying a bit, too.

A big tourist sort of bus showed up and took us what seemed to be another very very long way. Several times I glanced at the young man and he shook his head, “Not yet.”

We went through Barcares, a clean, neat colorful vacation town, and then out onto the peninsula between the Mediterranean Sea on one side and a large inland water something (bay? no, inlet? maybe) on the other. It was like the outer islands guarding the east coast, or so I guess, never having been there.

After winding through tiny streets, squeezing around confusing roundabouts, and moseying past lots of condos an palm trees, the young man nodded his head, the driver stopped, and we were finally at our home for the next seven days.

Next time, a week of adventures on the southern coast.