I’m reading a novel set in the Pyrenees-Orientals in the southwest corner of France just above Spain – and had trouble placing this spot on my mental map until a story in today’s NYTimes Travel section of the area just north of it around Carcassonne, the remarkable walled city I visited in 1978 with my sister (who had been living during her junior year of high school in Villeneuve Sur Lot) Turns out I probably went through the Pyrenees-Orientals – during a train trip from Italy to Spain in 1989. The NYTimes mentions some pricey hotels in Carcassonne – I remember in 1978 staying at a nicer-than-usual youth hostel there and spending a late night at a bar/club listening to live music for hours. I’m pleased to report the hostel appears to still be there.
(Just fyi to my brother: Villeneuve sur lot is 2.5 hours northwest of Carcassonne and Sarlat is 1. 5 hours northeast of Villeneuve. Confused? Best to look at a map)
The novel, by the by, is “Rat” by Fernanda Eberstadt, about a teen-ager growing up on the wild and windy Mediterranean Coast, a landscape so vividly portrayed that it seems like a major character. Reminds me a bit of the atmospherics of another novel about a teen-ager growing up on the southern French coast – “The Last Life” by Claire Messud.
TakeBetsywithyou 