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.

The Backpack is Packed!

Four weeks from today we’ll land at Orly near Paris. Today I stuffed my Kelty backpack with everything I am taking, then weighed it in at 12.5 lbs. Just right!

The choice of shoes boiled down to space and comfort. The winner (so far, anyway) was Bass. I chose the Bass shoes after first deciding on the Rockport ones, and before that, the Naturalizers. The Bass have a softer sole than the Rockports, and a lower heel than either the Rockports or the Naturalizers. My feet like that. The shoes are also roomier, and can handle an extra pair of socks on cold days.

This means I can’t take shower/bath shoes, or dressy ones, or the combo possible with Crocs. I had to send back the crocs because my right foot did not conform to their shape, and though I loved the feel on my left foot, I knew that walking requires two happy feet. I’m still waiting for the refund (note to Amazon).

The Ecco shoes suggested by my brother were too expensive. I could have bought a pair of them for the same price as the entire Bass/Rockport/Neutralizer combo. And I thought the women’s styles were not right for hitchhiking. You don’t want to clump around at the opera, but neither do you want to go fancy when walking and hitchhiking.

The Kelty backpack is comfortable and holds a lot. It has hidden compartments that remind me of my mom’s jewelry box with hundreds of tiny drawers, some hiding behind the others. Safe places where I can hide things and then forget where I put them. And then panic and empty everything out and still not find what I need because it’s in a hidden pocket, of course.

With my new Canon SX120 camera, I am sharing these pix with you. It hooks onto the belt thingy of the flowery purse thing I made (see the picture) that has, again, lots of hidden compartments.

That’s the end of the commercials. You might see some ads here in the future, or not. Who knows? It’s a way to earn a few extra cents, and for this senior on a fixed income who is running off to France when I can’t afford it, the pennies could save the day.

Note to self: Don’t leave chili cooking on the stove while writing your blog post. Also, keep saving because the power goes off when the Mojave wind blows.

Why France?

“Why France?” Thrim asked as we took our walk in the desert.

The question was so strange to me that I couldn’t think of an answer. I didn’t blurt out my first thought, a puzzled “Why not France?.” I kept walking and, odd for me, tried to figure out “why?” I’m impulsive rather than analytical.

Why, indeed, did Mary and I want to ramble around France for five weeks?

Stalling for time instead of answering his question, and curious, I asked, “Where would you go?”

Without hesitation, he replied, “England. The castles, the history, the stories. England.”

What a great idea, I thought. Why didn’t we decide to do that instead of France?

Maybe it’s because France is where we first hitchhiked, taking just a week to get in close touch with people and places. It was such a good experience that hitchhiking became our main type of transportation throughout Europe except in Spain and southern France where we rode our motorscooter.

We had so many friendly, harrowing, exciting experiences that the time stretches in memory to take up a much larger space than ordinary weeks or even years do.

In addition to that first week, we found jobs for six months near Chambley, a tiny town in Alsace-Lorraine, at a U.S. Air Force Base. Waking up every morning in the French countryside, walking the farm road to St. Julien, eating at Renee’s tiny restaurant where I first discovered quiche Lorraine, shopping in Metz and Nancy, also endeared France to me.

The jobs came about because Russia began constructing the Berlin Wall in August 1961, and in October detonated a 58 megaton hydrogen bomb known as Tsar Bomba that still holds the record for the largest man-made explosion. President Kennedy, judging those to be unfriendly acts, called up the Air Force National Guard and sent them to Europe to man a few old unused bases from WW II.

In that same bleak December we hit a low point in our adventure, hitchhiking on icy roads, cold and maybe even a bit homesick. When we heard that the Air Force might be hiring, we immediately went to Wiesbaden (or Frankfurt?) to apply. I was hired as the Service Club Director and Mary was my Assistant. For the six months the base was open, we ran the recreational activities and planned trips for our guys all over France and Europe.

Since we were being paid on a U.S. government payscale and had housing on the base, we were able to save enough to keep us traveling cheaply and slowly for another five months as far as Japan.

“That’s what I mean,” Thrim continued, still puzzled. “You went all the way around the world, you saw all those places, and yet you want to return to France?”

“Yes. Yes, we do.” France, in a way, was home.