As we woke on the Thursday morning we packed up our bags and headed back into the centre of Carcassonne. We'd rented a car for the next 4 days and needed to pick it up. I was, admittedly, a little nervous because I hadn't driven in quite a while and not in France for 2 years...so I was slightly worried about swerving into a bush or knocking someone off their bicycle. It turned out that the company gave us a new Peugeot 206 (just like mine at home, except being more modern and the sporty version). I immediately felt more comfortable and just told Guillaume to warn me if I started to sway to the right too much. After dropping our bags in the boot we set off in the direction of Rennes les Bains. I was a little concerned as we had no real map but Gui was quite sure he remembered the way so I put my trust in his elephant-like memory.
We arrived around an hour later at a small mountain village, surrounded by hills in the middle of nowhere with a river sweeping through the middle of it. It was an incredible sight and it took me a while to get used to the idea that we were actually staying there, for a few days at least. We entered our hotel, only one of two in the village and moved into our large but quaint room. We had a big balcony that we shared with two other rooms but as we were the only guests in the hotel we had it all to ourselves! It was a quiet period in the hotel, hence why we were alone and the vielle dame who ran the hotel recognised Guillaume from the year before. She was very kind and accommodating although sometimes difficult to understand due to her southern accent! I think the only negative was that it was very cold in our room on the first night but that quickly improved with the help of an electric heater and the sun shining through our long, high window.
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| Our hotel in the middle on the left |
I can't remember the exact order we did things in but I remember that we took a long walk all around the village breathing in the fresh air. It was strange but the fresh air, the sun and the peaceful ambiance soon made us relax entirely, so entirely that we very quickly fell asleep that night after picking up a fresh pizza from the one and only pizzeria in town...Oh how I loved village life already.
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| The beautiful village |
