Category: Uncategorized

Thursday was a Gaudi evening–a late afternoon tour of Casa Mila followed by an early evening tour and rooftop performance by a local singer, complete with cocktails served under the lights at Casa Batllo, right down the street.

But first was our long-awaited brunch at Milk, complete with their Bloody Marys, the best in Europe. We showed up at 9:30 a.m. without a reservation, and we were given a table right away. Had we waited another half hour, we would have waited out on the street for another half hour. Even in the middle of the week with depressed tourism numbers, Milk still fills up for brunch.

Our Bloody Mary lust fulfilled, we spent the rest of the day walking around the marina checking out the new mega-mega yachts arriving, and checked in at Royal Barcelona Yacht Club to make reservations for lunch Friday.

By late afternoon, it was time for our Gaudi adventure, so we took the Metro up to the tony Gracia nieighborhood, where Casa Mila and Casa Batllo are separated by only two blocks. Gracia along that stretch is the Fifth Avenue/Champs Elysees of Barcelona, lined on both sides of the wide thoroughfare with all the luxury brand names like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Cartier and the rest.

Both the Gaudi casas have stepped up their game in terms of production values in a major way. In some measure, that diminishes some of the tour through the buildings, as I remembered being able to go through rooms and areas that are no longer part of the very produced and orchestrated routes.

But none of that diminishes the beauty and grandeur of Gaudi’s residential creations. Casa Mila was his last residential project, designed for a very rich family who wanted to live on the ground floor and rent the upper floors out as apartments. Your tour now includes an informative audio guide that leads through all the major rooms and up into the attic where Gaudi’s famous whale bone catenary arches support the roof.

What they don’t tell you is that the way down and out is via seven floors of stairs with no stopping or detours. Lynn was none too happy.

While she took a potty break before leaving the building, I was able to admire what used to be the main entrance and owners’ stairwell, which I could have sworn was once open as part of the tour. Now it is off limits to visitors but visible on your way out and to the inevitable shop.

We actually made it through Casa Mila a bit too quickly as we had nearly an hour to wait for Casa Batllo to open the lines for the evening patrons. We should have sat down for a glass of wine, but I didn’t want to jeopardize our place in line. Bad judgment on my part.

We had the more exclusive gold tickets what would set us right up to the stage on the roof but even more important, admit us ahead of everyone else holding tickets.

We picked up our auto-sensing headphones at the entrance, which is not at all what I remembered from our previous visits. The entry area is now sleek, modern and nothing like the Gaudi architecture that awaits beyond.

Once we were inside the actual building, the headphones automatically sense which room you are standing in, and a narrative starts, complete with music and in some rooms a video depicting life among the very wealthy in early 20th century Barcelona. It’s all an extremely polished and sophisticated production.

We worked our way up the stairs through the graduated tiled light well and past Apartment F, where incredibly someone actually still lives. We reached the attic of arches fairly quickly by not listening all the way through the entire narrative in each room.

We actually reached the rooftop area early. We weren’t the only ones, and a line formed to wait on the setup to be completed.

Once in and seated, the show began right at 7 p.m. We were entertained by a very talented singer and her keyboard player.

Our performer sang a series of popular songs and her own numbers in three different languages, which itself was very impressive. Our tickets included two glasses of cava or beer, which we eagerly accepted, since my bad judgment had deprived us of a glass of wine before entering the place.

An hour and two drinks later, we wound our way back down to the ground through a brand new stairway designed by a Japanese sculptor to emulate Gaudi’s curves. More stairs, but at least these presented some passing interest.

And then we were out.

The Metro station is directly in front of Casa Batllo, so we ducked down to catch a different train back. What we did not realize was that our intended train was nearly a kilometer walk away. We would have been better off taking our original train and getting off on La Rambla rather than walking so far to reach the train that took us closer to our destination in the Barri Gotic.

But we finally made it, and found Sensi Tapas, where we were given a table–for an hour and a half, the attendant stressed. Our waitress learned we were from Louisiana, and explained that she plans to take a month in Louisiana next year. She was so excited to hear from real Louisiana residents.

Our food was, as always at Sensi, wonderful. Padron peppers (more than we could eat), shrimp, pork cheeks and raviolis in truffle sauce, truly decadent. The wine I ordered was corked, one of the very few times that has ever happened to me. We soldiered through a glass, and I finally called the captain over to taste it himself. He agreed immediately, took the bottle off the bill and gave us two glasses of good wine to accompany our delicious dinner. We went home happy and full.

Construction continues on this true wonder of the world nearly a century after Gaudi’s death. In fact, the audio guide predicts that the Mary spire, which will be the second tallest, will be completed this December.

Our timing was fortunate–Sagrada Familia had been closed for seven months due to the pandemic and started with limited hours in early summer. Full admission only began this month.

Tickets are not cheap–26 euros each. But they now come with a downloadable audio guide, and for one dollar more, you can get the guided tour. We didn’t need the tour, since we have visited Sagrada Familia a number of times, but the audio guide was somewhat informative.

The crowds were clearly smaller than before. We walked through the queue with only one family of four and proceeded quickly to security. Their security is more thorough than an airport–we had to take off belts and even watches. But once through that, we simply scanned our codes on the phone to the gate and we were outside to start with the model that is on display in the apron outside the Nativity portal.

The church can accommodate up to 1,000 people at a time, but I estimated there were no more than 600. We had been there before when the crowds were so thick is was difficult to move through.

In the center, they have added a large number of pews that now take up nearly two thirds of the floor space. The model toward the front that used to be there and in fact is referenced in the audio guide is gone, as is the mirrored table that allowed visitors to see the ceiling without craning your neck. The mirror never really was that efficient, since there is so much to see, and you spend most of your time looking up anyway.

Without the jostling of crowds, we were able to walk through at our own pace and in our own direction, marveling once again at the light and how it fills the interior space.

The audio guide helpfully explained many of the little details of the sculptures inside and out. Nothing in Sagrada Familia is left to chance. Every detail has been thought out and executed on a plan.

Underneath the church is an excellent museum detailing in depth the history of the construction with displays of various details Sagrada Familia, some of Gaudi’s drawings and the actual workshop where the current architects continue the mission of finishing this monument. My guess is that the workshop has not been occupied in a year.

The museum is worth a separate ticket, as it layers a physical element to so much of the design.

Since the crowds were small, we were able to wander through the basilica, the crypt and the museum at our own pace for a solid two hours. It was finally time to leave, so we walked over to the Metro stop and the McDonald’s/Five Guys corner opposite the stop we had emerged from earlier at the Taco Bell/Burger King corner, not realizing that this would require a very long walk through the station to reach our train. Had we simply walked back to the Burger King corner, we could have looked some more at Sagrada Familia without having to wear the suffocating mask.

Finally back to our neighborhood, we searched El Born for lunch and found a pleasant bistro in the plaza facing the Cultural Center. The menu offered some tapas for Lynn and a dish of pork, onions, peppers and fries for me. Lynn’s calamari were excellent; these did not come from Sysco. My pork was thick fried bacon, not the best I have ever had, but the rest of the dish was acceptable. Overall, it was a most ordinary meal for nearly 40 euros.

But dinner at El DIset awaited. And it did not disappoint. Surprisingly, we were not the first customers there at 7:30, but by the time we had finished, the place was full. Our waiter came up and actually sat down next to us to take our order, as if he was counseling us.

We started with an incredible bottle of wine at 23 euros, then dug into Lynn’s favorite ceviche, a wonderful dish of prawns, fish, avocado and mango slices, with chopped red peppers in the citris juices. Next out were two more tapas dishes on “glass bread,” their version of well toasted baguettes. One tapas was a chorizo in a savory, spicy red sauce and the other was grilled aubergine wrapped around goat cheese. Both came out as pairs, which meant it was almost too much for us to finish. But finish we did, and finish the wine we did. All this set us back 63 euros, about the same as our lunch plus the wine.

El Diset lived up to our estimation once again.

One of our favorite things to do in Barcelona that don’t involve a church or a Gaudi masterpiece is to visit Mont Juic park and castle. The trip requires a funicular from the Metro stop (part of the fare), then a separate gondola up to Mont Juic Park and the castle above that. The view from the gondola going up and down the mountain is spectacular as Barcelona spreads out below.

The castle charges another 5 euros for admission, but since we had been there before and have walked around a bunch of castles like it, we saw no reason to go in. Rather, we walked around to watch the archery club work out on their targets. Then we took the gondola down to the park below, where we found the handy sandwich spot and enjoyed a cold beer while we gazed at the view of Barcelona below us.

From the park, you can walk down the road a ways to take another gondola down to the harbor, far above the water.

It’s something I have wanted to do for years, but two reasons have kept me from the ride: 1) we can never find the station at Mont Juic and 2) Lynn doesn’t like heights. So we took the regular gondola down again from the park to the funicular to the Metro stop on Rambla.

By then, we were hungry for lunch and walked into Barri Gotic to find a suitable establishment. But as we walked the narrow streets, all we saw were small bodegas and shuttered doors at the better restaurants. I swore I remembered more and better places open for lunch last time we were here just two years ago. But now so much was closed, victims of the pandemic and/or shortage of workers.

We finally stopped at a reasonably decent looking place offering inside seats and empanadas that turned out to be mostly dough and little filling, but for two euros each, what can you expect? We ate quickly and walked on. Other the the crappy pizza place behind our apartment, we saw nothing inside the quarter that looked halfway decent for lunch.

After a quick break back at the apartment, we walked across Laietana to the Born neighborhood, which was a complete revelation. Quality looking restaurants were serving lunch and drinks on every block. It looked like a Catalan version of Paris. The people walking the streets were more upscale, the shops sold much better quality clothing and merchandise, the vibe was perceptibly more lively. El Born has risen. Barri Gotic seems to have declined substantially. We’ll know where to find lunch next time.

Our goal was to find El Diset, truly one of the great restaurants in Barcelona. I had been unable to make reservations online, so we figured that perhaps someone might be on the premises if we walked up. Not to be, so I called the number and someone actually answered. But he asked me to call back later when he would write down the reservation.

While we were walking through El Born, I searched for the clothing store where I had purchased a sweater, a jacket and a pair of shoes a few years ago. That was the most clothing I had ever bought in one place at one time in my adult life. But again not to be. We couldn’t find the store no matter which way we turned. They probably went out of business in utter shock after selling Tom Long all that stuff .

Dinner was at Gilda, right behind our apartment and directly across the street from Pennybanger. It was wonderful. Lynn proclaimed it better than any of the Sensi restaurants, because the menu is creative, typical Barcelona dishes with a sophisticated Belgian flair. Every aspect, including the service, the food, the wine and the atmosphere was excellent.

We finished the evening with a nightcap at Pennybanger, where we were reminded that they do not serve Havana Club, but something much better. Which is true.

The manager explained that they had been shut down for a year but the locals are coming back and so are the tourists. Same story we have heard on a number of occasions. But until they can come back fully, they have reduced hours to open at 6 p.m.

It was 9 p.m. when we sat there sipping our drinks. And we were the only customers in the bar, just as we had been the only customers in Gilda at 7:30. Barcelona is a late town in a late country in a late continent. We are Americans, and we are old, so we eat and drink early.

We awoke unusually early for us after a most restful night’s sleep in our familiar apartment. We were excited to be in Barcelona after two years, curious to see the changes and how many visitors were around.

But first things first. Chores must be done. First it was to the Santa Catarina market, where Lynn could buy chicken thighs, vegetables, and cheese. The chicken stand offered beautiful leg quarters but Lynn wanted just the thighs so we pointed to a couple already cut and asked for two more. Without hesitation, the chicken vendor pulled two leg quarters out and placed each into a pair of fixed mount giant chicken-cutting scissors that sliced the leg from the thigh in one swift motion. We were impressed.

Fresh veggies, chicken, sausages, mushrooms and cheese in hand, we deposited the goods back at the apartment and walked down Passeig Colom to the Coaliment supermercat for other essentials: paper towels, butter, soap, olive oil, eggs, and of course wine. I splurged on three bottles ranging from 5.35 to 8.95 euros. Oh the joy.

Main grocery chores accomplished, it was time for exploration around the neighborhood. There have been some changes in our ‘hood, most notably a Little Caesar Pizza joint now being finished out. From the looks of the construction, it may open before we leave. Not that we plan to dine there.

We wandered off to the marina for boat porn, but it turned out that none of the biggest ones were even 100 meters. Peanuts. But that includes perhaps the ugliest boat ever built for 150 million euros. I checked it out and it is owned by a Greek-Canadian tycoon.

Our goal was to hit Fastnet Bar for lunch, but when we walked up to Barcelonetta from the marina, it was closed, not to open until 1:30. We were too hungry to wait, so we walked back to Barri Gotic to explore what might be open for lunch. We walked through the narrow streets looking for suitable places and finally found ourselves at Placa George Orwell and Bahia Bar. Orwell is remembered here in Barcelona for his involvement in the Spanish Civil War in support of Barcelona and his landmark book Homage to Catalonia, one of the best accounts of the war. (Hemingway did pretty well too in A Farewell to Arms.)

We had been to this little spot a few times before on previous visits, and we eagerly walked in again to take the last of the two tables inside. We ordered our regular plates of potatoes bravas, chorizo in cider and for me, a plate of delicious, lemony anchovies. Lynn took one tiny taste and pronounced them too fishy. I gobbled up the entire plate hardly taking a breath.

We continued our casual explorations of Barri Gotic in no special order or plan. Although the old quarter features narrow winding streets, it also contains a number of spacious, even large plazas that are especially pleasant in beautiful weather. We wandered into and out of a few of them, enjoying the warm sunshine in short sleeve shirts for the first time in a month.

We commented on a number of store fronts that looked permanently closed. Although there is a lot of construction going on in the area, it looked like a lot of retailers had become casualties of the pandemic and the loss of tourism for a year.

Not that Barcelona is bereft of tourists. We took a stroll down the famous La Rambla, aorta of rampant tourism, and found the street to be crowded but nowhere near as bad as we have seen before. The crappy sidewalk restaurants were busy but not full, and the street was devoid of the usual itinerant sellers of cheap souvenirs displayed on the ground. All the cheap souvenirs were on display in their official stalls along the street.

The afternoon was drawing late, so we walked over to Pennybanger, the Irish bar we have frequented before, for an early cocktail, only to find it still closed. Their happy hour doesn’t begin until 6 p.m., and we didn’t care to wait around that long. SO it was back to the apartment for our own happy hour and dinner prepared expertly by Chef Lynn.

The rest of Barcelona cuisine would wait another day.

Our train out of Carcassonne did not leave until nearly 1 p.m., so we packed up in the morning and made a most frustrating, unfruitful excursion into town for breakfast.

Sadly, unlike Paris, petit dejeuner is not offered at many restaurants in Carcassonne. And the ubiquitous patisseries in Paris are nowhere to be found.

Maybe it was just Sunday, and maybe we were caught between early petit dejeuner (whenever that might be) and early lunch. Most restaurants in Carcassonne don’t open for lunch until noon, and the few that are open early for croissants and cafe had already shut down to prepare for Sunday lunch by the time we walked out of the hotel. We found nothing until we walked into a somewhat shady place frequented by a few old guys studying their racing forms and placing bets in the back room.

The waitress tried to accommodate, but our common Franglish was not working well. We wound up ordering toastines of canard in two different flavors. Tostines have nothing to do with toast–they turned out to be jars of duck spread which in any other circumstance would have been delicious. Instead, they just made Lynn more hangry. I ate most of my jar and a good bit of hers on slices of baguette.

Defeated in our hunt for breakfast, we walked back to the hotel to wait for our taxi to the train station. Lynn deposited herself in the sitting room, and I took a random walk around the hotel toward the bridge to the Cité. One last gaze upward on a cool, cloudy morning that did not show the medieval complex in its best light.

The taxi arrived right at 12:30 to take us on a five-minute ride to the train station. The Carcassonne station offers no option except to haul luggage down and up the flights of stairs to reach the train platform. Once again, we did the heavy lifting, then waited for more heavy lifting into the old inter-cities rail car.

Wouldn’t you know–someone was sitting in our seats. He politely gathered his computer, backpack, bag of food and assorted personal items that he had deposited in the seat across from him. It never ceases to amaze me that in Europe, people just take seats on trains, whether they have a ticket for those seats or not. In fact, I would wager that the young man didn’t even have a first-class ticket, as he would have had a reserved seat if he booked first class.

The ride to Narbonne was only 40 minutes, so we were faced once again with the Big Lug. Despite our vain hopes that our train to Barcelona would be on the same track as our train from Carcassone, it was not to be. Narbonne’s station is not much bigger than Carcassonne, so we waited as the crowd built for the train to Barcelona.

Due to Covid, crossing borders is sometimes not as simple as it used to be in Europe. Our pass sanitaire in France was supposed to be checked anytime we entered any sort of establishment, but truth be told, a lot of restaurants, especially outside Paris in France, never bothered.

I was nervous about crossing over to Spain, because I had researched and read that a similar pass was required by the Spanish government and health authorities. The online form was no big deal, but when I tried to submit for Lynn and me, it did not allow an option for a train entry. I had been told earlier by Viviane in Paris that taking the train into Spain was not a problem, but I fret over these things.

As it turned out, no one in France asked for our pass sanitaire when boarding the trains. In fact, no one asked for anything, including a passport (as is customary in the EU), when we arrived at Barcelona Sants train station. Even more surprising, no one even checked our tickets on the train at all on either leg.

The train to Barcelona was the fastest two hours of travel I think I have ever experienced. Before we knew it, we had passed the Etang salt flats of France and pulled into Perpignan, the last city in France. It seemed like minutes later we were in Spain arriving in Girona and right after that the huge Sants train station in Barcelona. We knew we were in Spain when the train announcements changed from French to Spanish in a second.

A short taxi ride took us to Friendly, where we checked in and paid our rent in something less than five minutes. Instead of asking the taxi driver to wait, we had to hail another one outside the office, but we were only five minutes or so away from our apartment on Paseo Colom facing the marina where the huge Barcelona Boat Show was just closing up.

As soon as we alighted from the taxi, we knew we were in so-familiar territory. Very little had changed on the street from the last time we had been to Barcelona. The bank on the corner was boarded up, a Little Caesar’s pizza opened where the old, mostly ignored Italian restaurant had been, and next door a new restaurant opened, which seemed to be a lot more successful. Bt the newsstand was still there, now closed but ready to open first thing Monday. And the little convenience store was at our building entrance.

We took the tiny elevator up to the fourth floor, unlocked the door and walked into Apartment Van Gogh. It was if nothing had changed since we were here last. We were home.

Carcassonne on the left bank of the Aude River is a small medieval city, so small in fact, that you can walk across town from the river to the Canal du Midi in about 10-15 minutes. Which we did Saturday. Twice and a half again.

We walked out of the hotel, Luddite paper map in hand, to visit the sights of Carcassonne. Our first stop was the Musee des Beaux Arts, which we had passed a number of times at the far end of pleasant, attractive Gambetta Park just steps from our hotel.

Admission is free, so we walked right through after showing our pass sanitaire. The museum collection includes a few galleries of minor painters from the 17th through the 19th centuries. Some of the paintings are interesting, but frankly most are clearly not up to Louvre or d’Orsay standards. They are simply hung on the walls without explanation or any particular organization other than time.

The park features a number of nude statues sprinkled all over the grounds surrounding the central splash fountain water feature. At the closed end of the park stands the museum, an attractive Beaux Arts building in its own right that we found lighted in purple the night before.

The featured exhibit was a collection of photographs of women in various elaborate costumes (or none) with messages written on their bodies in marker pens. The messages covered the usual litany of liberalism: climate change, equity, consumerism, wealth distribution and whatever else is wrong with contemporary society. It was all pretty bizarre and self-indulgent, as so much of today’s uber-liberal thinking tends to be.

We made it through the museum in a little more than a half hour and started down rue Verdun, which by now was a busy shopping thoroughfare.

Our targets included the St. Michele Cathedral and its adjacent clothing market, les Halles food court/market, St. Vincent Church and finally all the way across town, the port at Canal du Midi. It was directly across from the very train station where we had arrived in Carcassonne the day before.

There is only one lock at the Carcassonne port but several excursion boats to transport tourists through it. Since we had just been through the same type of lock in Toulouse and years ago traversed dozens of locks on the same canal, we had little interest in doing one more. But it was enjoyable to watch the large pontoon boat navigate the lock and rise to the port level, a good eight feet above the canal behind it.

All of this sightseeing took no more than a couple of hours back and forth along the streets of Carcassonne. Our boating curiosity satisfied, we walked back through town again to the main square to find lunch and located an available table at Cafe Felix, one of the many establishments surrounding the square. We wanted to split something a bit more substantial to take us to dinner, and we found the perfect item on the menu, a charcuterie board.

After successfully ordering water and glasses of wine, I asked for the charcuterie board, but the waiter misunderstood my poor pronunciation and eventually brought out a plate of choucroute. Not what we wanted, but actually it turned out to be pretty good and just right for the two of us to share. Again, a lot of amazement from the waiter that we wanted only one plate, so amazing that he brought out only one set of utensils. And the choucroute was a euro less than the charcuterie board, so no complaint from me.

By the time we finished, the tables around the square had started to empty out. We settled up and walked back to the hotel for a bit of rest from our efforts of crossing Carcassonne.

Soon after, however, I couldn’t resist one more walk across the old bridge to the Cité. It was just so close, and the sun was so warm. We joined a stream of locals and tourists crossing the bridge and walking to the fortress. This time we turned right off the bridge and found the steep path just a few yards away that led up to the Aude gate of the Cit´e.

At the bottom of the hill in the shadow of the Cité stands the smallish Gothic church of St. Glimer. It was designed by Viollet-le-Duc for the villagers during the extensive and disruptive renovations in the mid-19th century. The steep cobblestone path up to the gate starts there, and Lynn decided to rest near the church while I climbed up the road.

The climb up is strenuous. The walk down is treacherous. I made sure to pick up my feet carefully, lest one misstep put me in a close encounter with gravity.

But it was worth one last look up close at the Cité.

Our last dinner in our short stay in Carcassonne was back to Verre d’Un, where I had the same lamb shank that Lynn enjoyed two nights before, and she ordered the whole daurade. Lynn expertly picked out the meat, lifted the backbone and surgically plowed through the entire, expertly cooked fish despite chewing on just a few little feather bones without swallowing any of them.

Carcassonne’s massive Cité on the right bank of the Aude River dates back to the third century B.C. and over the last 2,500 years has been built, destroyed, enlarged and renovated by Romans, Visigoths, Crusaders and French kings. The view from our hotel balcony promised a grand adventure exploring the ancient citadel.

Carcassonne officially joined France in the 13th century as a bastion of defense against the Spanish House of Aragon. During those years, the old Roman walls were mostly demolished, and the fort was expanded with newly constructed outer walls and towers. But the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees effectively rendered the fortress strategically unnecessary, the citadel was abandoned and Carcassonne developed a thriving economy in the woolen textile industry.

Interestingly, the French government wanted to demolish the crumbling complex in the middle of the 19th century, but local citizens vehemently opposed the move. The work was assigned to none other than Eugene Viollet-le-Duc, the architect who also designed the spire of Notre Dame in Paris.

Today the Cité is one of the marvels of western European history. It is much more than a fort. In fact, the medieval citadel contains the Carcassonne Castle, Saint Nazaire Basilica, and as number of medieval houses that stand today. The Cité was also a site of the early Inquisition as the Cathar sect of the Catholic Church had taken root there, which generated a Crusade to seize Carcassonne from the heretics.

Today, tickets to tour the entire complex cost only 9.50, but be prepared to climb lots of steep staircases as you explore the castle and walk the ramparts among the 52 towers.

The Basilica of St. Nazaire is a separate but free admission.

We spent nearly two hours clambering around the castle and its ramparts that offer views almost all the way to Spain. Most of the major rooms and features of the complex offer explanatory boards in French, English and Spanish, so we Americans can understand the stories behind the walls and turrets. We could have stayed longer, but hunger drove us out.

We had grabbed only a single croissant on our way to the Cité in the morning, so we were famished by the time we had covered the fortress. We stopped at a little place called L’Ecu D’Or (The Golden Shield–everything in the village relates to the fort), where we each ordered a full salad, chèvre for Lynn (her favorite) and a decadent seared foie gras with sliced duck livers and prosciutto over lettuce and tomatoes for me. Both were splendid. Mine, in fact, was decadent.

It was all we could do to finish our salads, as we watched an elderly French couple sitting at the adjacent table put away a salad, main course and dessert–each. They exchanged some humorous comments with the waiter, I think at our expense, probably wondering how Americans who eat so little can make it through the day. We, on our part, were stuffed and wondering how we would make it down the hill, across the river and into our hotel for a nap.

But we managed.

While Lynn napped, I walked back out to the wine store to purchase provisions for the next two nights. Wouldn’t you know–the store was closed, as it had been the day before. I forgot they shut down in mid-afternoon.

I walked into the Verre D’Un restaurant, where our jolly proprietor assured me the store would open in less than 30 minutes and offered a glass of wine from their sophisticated tasting machine. I chose a Pic St. Loup, a pretty rare growth from a very small region around here. He awarded me the glass and said, “Free for the wait.”

I did not argue, but walked outside to enjoy the glass while listening to a table of four British tourists finishing their lunch. Soon enough, the wine store manager signaled to me that he was opening. He showed me four different bottles of Pic St. Loup, and I picked one, plus a local wine he had on display in his window.

Dinner was at Le Rideau Rouge (The Red Curtain) across the street from the theatre, where all the restaurants have names connected with the stage. I had been attracted to their board that advertised a steak–not an entrecôte–for 24 euros. I ordered that, and Lynn had the grilled pork medallions, both dishes served with frites as only the French know how to make them. Again, we were stuffed after just our main course.

We stand in awe of the French, who seem to eat prodigious amounts of food at every seating. Maybe they only eat one meal a day, but that one meal reaches the caloric level of an entire day of our existence. Vive la France if they can stay alive.

We were forced to eat breakfast at the hotel, despite the high cost (12 euros) and skimpy selection of sliced cold cuts, cheese, bread and a few hard boiled eggs. The reason we ate there, knowing how little value that represented, was because we simply couldn’t find anything open around the hotel down the street where we had seen so many restaurants the day before.

Of course, as soon as we walked out of the hotel in the other direction and turned right to see the Black Madonna at Notre Dame de Daurade, we came across a fine breakfast place.

This Black Virgin church displays a neo-classical facade that was obviously added to the original church, which dates back to at least the 6th century. The interior is beautiful, mostly from the 17th and 18th centuries.

Oddly, the Black Madonna does not stand over the main altar but on an elaborate side chapel. As in so many churches, the most interesting sections are the side chapels dedicated to various saints plus the crypt behind and below the main altar, which was relegated a half century ago to a brilliant piece of historic sculpture, as all of its kind were after Vatican II.

We walked back to the hotel, checked out and took the short cab ride to Gare Toulouse to wait on our train. For France’s fourth largest city, Toulouse does not have much of an impressive train station. The waiting room is plain and mostly dingy with some of the leatherette seats worn and ripped away to reveal ancient foam beneath. They are cordoned off for sanitary reasons, but who would want to sit in these anyway?

We found suitable seats and waited for our train track to appear on the screen. While we sat there, a youngish woman bundled up to look like an old lady in a wheelchair with the requisite begging paper cup started wheeling through the waiting passengers. She was quickly confronted by no fewer than four SNCF railway guards and escorted firmly out the door. She flipped them off as she departed; it was pretty obviously this was not their first encounter.

To pass the time, I explored the other side of the station, Hall 2, which is simply–ready?–the other side of the station. But it was much more lively. A small crowd gathered around a live cooking demonstration, just like a home & garden show. And on the far end was a small MonoPrix, the Target of France.

Finally our track was posted on the screen, so we dragged our baggage to the elevator for the trip down beneath the tracks, only to discover that there was no corresponding elevator back up. And this is France’s fourth largest city.

We had first class tickets booked, luckily, since the train was pretty much full, even in first class. But it was an old inter-cities train with a heavy, manual door and steep steps. Lugging our heavy luggage through the door and stumbling up the steps, I could feel my back explode in a fiery stab of protesting nerves.

The ride was short, only about 45 minutes, and we alighted at the Carcassone rail station, which consisted of two sets of tracks and a tiny station. And no escalator or elevator.

Going down two flights of stairs was bad enough. After that we had to go up the same route to get into the station and the town of Carcassonne. My back continued to protest. It could wait for drugs later.

Our hotel turned out to be superb. It is located right on the Aude River looking out to the huge medieval Cite de Carcassonne castle. Our room was even tinier than the one in Toulouse, but extremely comfortable. We would later learn that not all the outlets work, so we would have to move the coffee maker to the tiny table at the foot of the bed.

But the bathroom has an overhead shower, the first we have seen since we left the U.S. We like that. And better than that, our room included a balcony looking right out to the castle across the river.

We had arrived too early to check in, and the desk clerk suggested walking over to the center square just a few minutes away. We were really hungry by then, and chickened out trying to find the square. Had we kept walking two more blocks, it would have jumped on us.

We had tried two promising looking restaurants just past Gambetta Square, but both had closed at 2 p.m. So we settled for a Middle Eastern take-out place and a six euro pita sandwich, when I thought I had ordered a plate. And they had no beer.

Fortified for at least a little while, we kept walking and there it was–the main square. lined with restaurants ready to take us right in. Instead, we ordered a couple of glasses of wine at three euros each to relax for just a little while.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped at a wine store/restaurant named Verre d’Un on rue Verdun. (Get it? It took me two days.) They too had been closed when we first walked by, but now they were ready for business, and we were ready to buy.

We also made plans to dine there, considering their cassoulet was 19 and some of the other plats ranged from 14-16. We have noticed that dining and drinking gets cheaper the farther away we get from Paris, and we don’t think Paris is that expensive.

Our dinner turned out to be wonderful. Lynn had a lamb shank that was savory, tender and falling off the bone. (The word on the menu was “Souris,” which is French means mouse. Who knew?) My cassoulet was by far the best we had had in France, full of thick, rich beans cooked down with a piece of duck sausage and a duck leg confit.

Both of our dishes were accompanied by small hearts of romaine lettuce with balsamic vinegar drizzled over them, a perfect little salad to go with rich food. Dinner made us forget the travails of traveling by rail to small towns.

My back no longer hurt by the time we retired. Most of the cure had to be food and wine related.

We started our quick one day visit to Toulouse with the little tourist train we had spied the night before. It starts at Place du Capitole, a huge square lined with government buildings, two large hotels and several restaurants with a massive sundry market on the grounds. The market sold everything from clothes to leather goods to vinyl and CDs to electronic gadgets to housewares that defy description.

I bought a European USB adapter to see if I could get one that works, as the other ones we have do not with any consistency. I think it may have something to do with varying degrees of power to individual outlets, as the adapters work fine on certain walls and not at all on others in the same hotel room.

The little train sat waiting for the first departure of the morning. We were the second to board, as the conductor/driver motioned us to the second car for a better view. I made sure to sit in the middle of the car between the wheels to soften what is usually a pretty stiff ride.

As we waited for the departure hour, the train filled almost to capacity. The driver walked by collecting 7 euros each–cash, not credit cards–and off we went slowly, clogging traffic through the narrow, historic streets of Toulouse for the next 45 minutes.

Because it was still early enough in the day that the sun really was not shining down into the streets, we were cold, in fact freezing. Foolishly we had both determined the night before that socks were not needed. They were.

But the tour was most informative, telling us where to go as much as relating the history and main sights of the city. That’s why we take these things, as touristy as they seem and really are.

From there, we explored some of the churches we had seen on the route, then walked back to the square to gather our bearings.

We walked around the square some more so Lynn could look for a lipstick holder to replace the one she bought a few years ago in Florence. By then, it was definitely time for lunch.

On our way to the square, we had passed a place called Aligot where the proprietress was stirring a huge pan of creamed potatoes with a four-foot paddle.

We saw nothing along the way that convinced us to eat elsewhere, so we stopped in for what turned out to be a spectacular lunch. Lynn ordered the cassoulet with a duck leg and sausage in the thick brew of white beans, and I by mistake ordered exactly the same thing I had the night before. But different, for sure.

Aligot, as the owners explained, consists of potatoes mashed and creamed with butter, cheese, creme fraiche and their secret ingredient–garlic. (Not Lynn’s, I might point out.) It was nothing short of decadently delicious. And the duck sausage on top of the aligot was much denser and flavorful than what I had had the night before. I realized then that Lynn’s judgment of “ordinary” at the brasserie the previous night had been correct.

As we finished our plates (11 euros(!) for Lynn’s cassoulet), we chatted with the owners in our common broken Franglish.

They explained that they had been shut down for seven months with two more months of restricted business. He explained that the locals are coming back, some of the tourists are showing up again, but very few Americans. Their biggest challenge right now is–surprise, surprise–getting help.

It was the same story in Paris, the same story in Toulouse and the same story in the U.S. Restaurants cannot find workers. He told us that he and his wife are working alone in the little restaurant every single day without a break because they simply can’t find anyone to staff the place.

So the trip to the U.S. that they had planned for last summer is off until hopefully next June. They plan to visit Miami, Key West, New Orleans (bienvenue!) and New York. We encouraged them to make the trip and contact us when they get to New Orleans. We’ll send them to our favorite restaurants, where perhaps they may find something as good as their aligot. Surely garlic is not a secret ingredient in New Orleans.

This had not been a light lunch, so we repaired to our room for a late nap before more cathedral explorations and the river boat tour we had discovered. The boat’s last tour started at 4 p.m., perfect for us, since it allowed time for one more cathedral visit.

There was a small line when we finally got down to the boat at the river bank, but we were close enough to the front to grab seats on the upper deck for a better view. Our one-hour trip would take us through a lock into the Canal de Brienne, which eventually links to the beginning of the Canal du Midi at a large turning basin.

The trip down the canal is frankly boring. It runs through a leafy, pretty section of Toulouse lined with very attractive buildings, some old and many new, but for the most part compatible. But the boat ride runs straight through, and the recorded commentary was strictly in French. It’s recorded for goodness sakes–they couldn’t have recorded English and Spanish versions like every other tour does?

They did offer a QR code that allowed me to open a web site with the narrative in English. But I had to go hunt for the crew with his one laminated card halfway through the trip to get the link, as they didn’t really offer it when boarding.

For 12 euros, the boat ride was not worth the price and offered no real information that we did not get for seven euros on the little train in the morning.

So for those of you who decide to visit Toulouse–take the train and leave the boat.

After the disappointing boat tour, we walked back looking for a suitable place for dinner, but nothing really attracted us. So we did what we do so well, that is, go net door to the Spanish bar for a couple of glasses of wine to discuss the situation. While we sat there, the power kept going out in the building due to some overload. They finally restored steady lights, so we looked at the menu and saw a lists of tapas that were somewhat interesting. Why not? We were already there.

But the tapas were ordinary, to be kind. The plate of grilled octopus was absoulutely not to Lynn’s liking and even though I myself am a big fan of octopus, this just wasn’t that flavorful at all. Her burrata cheese in an aubergine sauce was the best of the three we ordered, as the magret of duck was not all that flavorful either. In fact, none of it was really very good.

But then, what do you expect from bar food?

Our G7 taxi ordered online the day before arrived at precisely 9:30 a.m. to take us to Gare Montparnasse and our train to Toulouse. The 15-minute drive cost 25 euros, seven which were a surcharge for ordering the cab in advance. Had we simply ordered for immediate pick-up, the surcharge would have been four euros, and if I had walked down to the taxi stand on rue Monge, there would have been no surcharge at all.

Lesson learned.

The Montparnasse station has been renovated and resembles a clean, contemporary airport on the quiet departure side. We could see the crowded mall on the other end, and when our train arrived, it was obvious that we were swimming upstream, as the crowds boarding the train were coming from the busier mall side.

As always, our train ride was quiet, smooth and fast, sometimes topping 300 kph. The countryside flattened perceptibly as we made our way south through Bordeaux and the wine region. Fields of harvested grapes spread out both sides of our tracks as far as we could see, harbingers of bottles in the future.

The Toulouse rail station is underwhelming for France’s fourth largest city. We could have simply walked off the train through a chain link fence and out to the street, but I wanted to see what the interior of the station looked like, so we dragged our bags through there. But there was nothing to see, other than ticket kiosks and the ubiquitous hand sanitizer stations.

The taxi line is not at all self-evident in its direction, but we finally got guidance to the head (which looks like the back end), and proceeded off to our hotel. Our surcharge for handling our two suitcases was five euros, not disclosed until the end of the ride.

Our Hotel des Beaux Arts is located at the foot of the Pont Neuf that overlooks the Garonne River and the massive historic Hotel Dieu. Our part of town is old, and we could readily see why Toulouse is called the “rose city” for the dusty color of the building bricks.

Our room is tiny and funky, but enjoys a great view of the river below. We watched the sun set over the river through our little window after taking a walkabout to explore the blocks surrounding the hotel.

We quickly found the Casino supermarket across the street and purchased a bottle of wine from among the scores of Bordeaux labels on the shelf. Toulouse is located at the junction of the Languedoc and the Bordeaux regions, so the latter dominate the store shelves.

We decided to slake our travel thirst with a couple of glasses of Spanish wine at Mucho!, the tapas bar next to the hotel. While sitting at our sidewalk table, we studied the surrounding architecture, and remarked that much of the ironwork resembled the Spanish style in the French Quarter more than the simpler French style in Paris. In addition, many of the people hustling around the streets looked vaguely Spanish, and the street signs were displayed in two languages.

I checked, and sure enough, Toulouse at one time was the northern reach of the Catalan empire when it was a separate country. They don’t hang Catalan flags from balconies here like they do in Barcelona, but you can see the influence if you look closely. Toulouse was also the center of the Cathars, a breakaway sect of Catholicism that actually spawned the original Inquisition.

Dinner was at the Brasserie des Beaux Arts, a pretty expensive place for seafood but offering a semi-reasonable 19 euro menu for entree and plat. We each ordered six oysters as our entree, as we noticed that the oysters ran upwards of four euros a piece a la carte. The oysters were tiny and flat but delicious and briny, accompanied by a pungent hogwash sauce.

Tragically, the restaurant was out of mussels, which disappointed Lynn, who then proclaimed the establishment “ordinary.” I thought somewhat more kindly, especially after eating those delicious oysters with a half-bottle of Gasgony wine that improved my mental review of the restaurant.