Voila Vincent: Postcards from our villages

There is snow on Canigou, just opposite, and a biting little chill nipping the air: so it is time for us to leave Eus.

We are sad. We have come to love this little corner of the world.

Each day we have crammed in repeat visits to little villages that are close enough for lunch and a drive.

Ceret: An arty town. Picasso was here. As were many contemporary artists through until the 1920s. They came, they stayed, they painted. Many buildings show medallions of where they rented homes for the duration. Trouble is, I pretty much lose interest in artists after Van Gogh, so I hardly know these folk. Nor do I understand their work.

We lunch right outside a very trendy modern art gallery, which we weren’t even tempted to enter. But lunch was fun, Catalan, served by a delightful character from the hippie era, wearing a long braid and an even longer red Indian cotton tie-died shirt. He played Cat Stevens and Dylan and we stayed longer because he played them for us.

Collioure: A very pretty coastal town, climbing around the bay. The harbour looks a little like Chania in Crete from above with ancient harbour walls curving like skinny stony arms out into the blue Mediterranean.

Molitg-les–Bains: A spa town. Probably the prettiest town in the region, as it has been decked out in stylish slim Cyprus pines, pretty lanterned gardens and water gushing down the mountain side.

Stylish spa pools and elegant hotels frequented by clients ‘taking the waters’ line the narrow streets. This is one of the few places where you still have to reserve to gain a table for lunch.

Vinca: Just up the road, this is another very unprepossessing town, with few shops, yet it has a delicious and inexpensive restaurant where we were served great Catalan fare with espresso to finish at only 90cents a demitasse: the most reasonable, yet, in France.

The town has “beaucoup” Englishmen, according to the Maitre D’ and when you walk the streets you can see their many homes renovated within an inch of their lives. Not much is left open in these parts now, given the chill in the air.

Villefranche-de-Conflent, the most touristy spot, was all but closed yesterday when we called in to say goodbye. The few people who were in the few bistrots open were foreigners: mostly English. Many tourist shops have even taken their merchandise out of the stores for the winter, swept the shop empty, and locked the door. Most places around here are moving indoors for the winter.

Two little boys live in our village. From now until May they will likely spend most of their time indoors. They don’t have gardens. There is no public park on this hill – or any of the towns in these parts. Nowhere green for the children to play.

Most houses don’t even own gardens in these hill communities. Actually, that is true in most of France. Only a very few do. It is odd, to us, from Australia – where the outdoors is always accessible, usable and available to use – to live seasons as separately as they do in France. The umbrellas have been folded, bistrot chairs stacked till next spring, signs dismantled, doors locked. That season is over. It is time to move on to the next.

We have now to wind our way back to Calais. Some 1300 kilometres of driving in the midst of a fuel strike. The centrist-right French government is attempting to push up the retirement age from 60 to 62 – I guess they have finally done their sums and realized they can’t afford to let people retire too early! – and the objecting hoards have come out in protest: one of their easiest bludgeons: the oil refineries, have been closed in protest. Our trip back will be yet another adventure hunting down fuel.