It’s weird to think the long trip is coming to its end. It’s a nice thing about a trip that is also a journey – you have a feeling of progression in distance as well as simply time, which somehow gives more of a sense of purpose. Which I like.There was a fair bit of rain overnight which continued unconvincingly into the morning. After breakfast, I actually did a bit of planning by calling ahead to Colombiers to see if there was a handy laundry facility. There was not. This then posed a quandary – either to live in quite significant squalor (I’m not going to lie, we’ve not been over-keen on either changing clothes or washing. Boat life, amirite?) or do the decent thing and hang around Capestang while our laundry washed and dried. Fortunately, our standards hadn’t dropped too far, so once the dryer was started, we went to explore the town some more. First stop the post office to send some postcards and those Maigret books to my mum, then to the incredible church here. La Collégiale St Étienne is a remarkable building – it looks more like a fortress or citadel from the outside, and is amazing inside too. Clearly not on the tourist trail as only one parishioner came and went while we were there, and no tourists.
The news of the fire in Notre Dame Paris is appalling, but when you consider the surplus of magnificent churches (probably plenty in Paris alone) and the unseemly haste of big firms to pledge hundreds of millions for a high-profile cause which they can stick their logo on, rather than say, sponsor facilities to improve quality of life in the banlieues of Saint-Dénis (which might actually improve people’s lives, but brand value may take longer to realise), you think perhaps some priorities are misaligned with reality. Rant over.
Capestang is a really nice little town, with very interesting architecture. Some similarities with other places we’ve visited – the road through it is very busy, while the town itself seems impossibily quiet. But there are a few signs of artists and creative folk here, so I suspect this could be a bohemian little goldmine.
As we had time to kill, we decided to have lunch here rather than proceed to Poilhès. The places we’d seen had not filled is with confidence – either closed or basic/catering to a crowd more interested than drinking than eating. But the restaurant attached to the Café de la Grille was excellent, if somewhat bizarre. Hosted in a temporary space, with a big projector screen and a butcher’s counter where you could buy meat retail, the restaurant was doing good trade and with good reason. The best pizza we’ve had this trip (super thin crust) for the kids, good bavette and chips, nice half bottle of wine and the moelleux chocolat was delicious, even if unrepentantly declared as (when I asked if it would take long, as the drying had finished) “non, ça prend 30 secondes dans le micro-onde”. Really enjoyable!
Once back at the boat, I grabbed the dry-ish laundry, got the deposit back on the magnetic card which controls access to WCs, laundry etc and scarpered as the huge Anjoli boat snuck in and wanted our space (that boat has shadowed us, I swear). We were free and clear and on our way to Colombiers!
Timsformational 