Thursday 13 September 2012 Paziols France
Helen, Rod Lyndsay and I up, breakfasted and out of
the house by 8.45 am and drove to Villefranche de Conflent about 11/2 hour
drive south west into foothills of the Pyrenees, which is a walled town.
Spent a couple of hours in the town, walked the
ramparts and had picnic ( with great bacon and egg pie cooked that morning by
Gay) in the square.
Then headed to the station to catch the 13.50 pm
departure of le Train Jaune for a 1 ½
hour ride up the mountains to Font
-Romeu on a high plateau and then back down again. This train has been running
for more than a hundred years.
We had been well instructed on need to get to the
station early to be at head of queue so we were able to get seats at the back
of the open wagon so that we could get good views all around. Seats are wooden
slatted so a bit hard on the backside after 3 hours. Interesting to note that
even tho the sun stayed out the temperature dropped so much by the time we
reached the plateau at the top that I needed to add a jumper and parka to the T Shirt I had
started the journey in.
Most amazing views as we passed through forested
areas with deep gorges, open farmland and a number of small towns and villages,
some perched precipitously on the edge of steep cliffs.
Arrived back at Paziols about 7 pm where there was a
very strong north westerly wind blowing. The house was relatively calm and sheltered from the wind as on eastern side of
the hill but when I was up on top of the hill attempting to take photos it was
very difficult even to hold the camera steady.
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