Tuesday 4 September 2007

The Tour of South of France

Sorry Sorry Sorry to keep you waiting for some news. We must admit that our blog has not been updated for a while BUT we have a good excuse as we were updating our lives with our old friends...


At first, we went down to Perpignan, the Southeast French town, few kms away from Spain, to see one of my oldest friends, Mr Sebastien Garnier. He is a friend from Middle school. First parties, firsts drinking session, first holidays between teenagers, first girls, first motorbike, first cigarettes, first fighting...a lot of memories! He is now living a beautiful nest in the south, near the Mediterranean sea where he is managing 3 shops (selling dishwashers fridges, oven, TV and so on...)!









On the same week-end, another friend from our teenage years join us. This one is much more quiet, less wild but always ready for "crazy" adventures as once we travel Italy hitchhiking/backpacking or cycling's expeditions in the Alps doing wild camping and much more...His name is Benjamin....He is the tallest of all of us....













I show my friends the way. I am proud to be the first among them to be married. As you can see, we all grow up and now and we all have a serious relationship. 3 wonderful girls for 3 sex symbols...

The highlight of our stay there was the Canyoning. This barbarian name means, going down the canyons by jumping 5 to 10m in a 10degrees's water, sliding some waterfalls, swimming in small rivers, climbing few walls....Well, it's been a cool afternoon...





We also visited CADAQUES, it's a pleasant little town in Spain, the hometown of the artist and painter Salador DALI! There we had one of the traditional Spainish dish: PAELLA:

Cadaques port on the left and Dali house on the right!








On the way to Perpignan, we stopped at Montpellier, south of France too to meet Bruno's parents and to Bruno's nest (our friend from Brunei who became my housemate for 1 year and a friend for life. He is now a Dive instructor in Indonesia near Bali)! We had a wonderful dinner on the terrace with France and Elvio followed by a lovely night in Bruno's garconniere! We were happy to met his parents and see his house where I am sure a lot of ladies got trapped in it....n'est-ce pas Bruno?



After one week at my friend's place in Perpignan, we move on to Toulouse to see our friend from Brunei, Xav, the engineer. He host us in his little apartment and made us visit the town. He treat us in a nice resto as a wedding gift (yes we are still receiving wedding gift!) and the day after, we cycles along the CANAL du MIDI. This canal link the 2 French seas Atlantic ocean on west coast to Mediterranean sea on the East coast. A hard work done in the 15th century to avoid the ships to go around France, Spain and Portugal (well, let me know if you want more details cos a lot of you will be bored if I tell too much too much about it). A perfect place to cycle along the water, under the shade of big trees and no car allowed!!!




Photos: On the main square of Toulouse, by the river Garonne at sunset. Along the canal du Midi with our bikes....Flo loved it there!








After Toulouse, we went to discover a interesting historical place. In the 12 and 13th centuries, a religion were taking place. The Cathars faith, was a religion close to Buddhism in some ways. All the material things are bad, only spiritual is good! Suddenly, the pop decided that this religion was BAD ans ask King of France to eliminate it. In 50 years, all the Cathars were assassinated except in MONTSEGUR, the last cathars were hiding in their last castle, on the top of the mountain in the Pyrenees, near Spain. It took 11 months for the French army to take the fortress. At the end, as all the cathars refuse to convert, they all went down to the BBQ and more than 200 people were burnt alive for not being christians!!! It was the END of the Cathars religion!
As you can see, we had to fight against a very bad weather, and a very strong wind that was flying us away! A very interesting trip in the middle of nowhere that brought us back to the 13th century.


To be continue very soon.... as always, you can see some more photos on our album http://lesaventuresdeyoyo.spaces.live.com/

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