Carcassonne – and heading for Port Lauragais

Dear all

First update this year.

We spent Christmas and New Year in Denmark seeing family and friends and with the cold winter in France it was an extra advantage staying in Denmark.

We were back in Carcassonne early March. While being in Denmark there was a heavy storm in south of France and in Carcassonne a lot of trees fell down also around the harbour. There were no damages on the boats in the harbour. Boatmen staying in the harbour took care of the empty boats. Thank you.

And of course it was nice again meeting the other people in the harbour.

What we really like is going to the market – in Carcassonne Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday; not only to shop fresh vegetables and fruit but also to look at people. Especially on Saturdays the “whole town” will be there. After a while you know where to shop.

Together with the spring you will see flowers all around public buildings, roundabouts etc. it is so French.

France without a strike is not possibly. On the 19^th of March there was one again in the whole of France. In Carcassonne about 15.000 demonstrators from the region passed through Carcassonne. The demonstration was against cutting in public sector, schools, healthcare and traffic.

We had a visit of our friends from Switzerland, we met them in 2006 on the Marne River, and last year they were boating with us from Valance. During the week we were driving around the region. We visited, among other places, Narbonne a very interesting town. The weather was warm and sunny – so we had lunch by the canal.

At the end of March Helén and Uffe came to stay with us for a week. It was so nice to have them around. It was the intention that we should be boating from Carcassonne to Port Lauragais; but an important repair of our car put an end to that. Instead we had some wonderful days in Carcassonne. The “young people” enjoyed visiting La Cité. And we had a tour to Lagrasse a little mountain village south of Carcassonne.

Last Saturday of March all people were back on the boats and of course that is a good reason to have a BBQ-party. The weather could be better – but the food was in top. (and of course the wine J).

On the 2^nd of April we left Carcassonne. From beginning of April the hire boats starts the season. It means that the harbour will change completely it will be filled up with up to 30 hire boats. We were boating in something between rain and hard rain. When we arrived in  Port Bram we were wet and cold. Luckily we got the only power plug – so the next day we were warm and dry.

The cruise was not easy, lots of up going locks, had to stay behind a very slow barge for a long time and long waiting time before going through the locks. But we reached Port Lauragais on the 4^th of April.

Now we are going to do some painting and repair on NUSER before we start our spring cruise together with our friends and “mentors” from Denmark. They will stay on board for 10 days when we will be heading towards Bordeaux on Canal du Midi and Canal de la Garonne

Love

Jytte and Rudy