Carcassonne Cuisine

The walled French town of Carcassonne has been on our radar since 2005, when Bec's lovingly-constructed European tour itinerary included it as a stop between Bordeaux and Barcelona. Due to forces beyond our control, we never made it then, and have been meaning to "tick it off" ever since. We finally managed it over the first May bank holiday, taking our second RyanAir (boo! hiss!) flight of the year to the lovely South of France.

Carcassonne is famous for the lovely castle/château that looms over the river, quite literally lording it over the "New Town". And rightly so:


The Old Town is still fully-functional, albeit dominated by tourist traps and restaurants these days. Actually staying within the town's walls is possible but ludicrously expensive, so we took the economical option and stayed in the Ibis just over the other side of the Old Bridge, getting a great view and plenty of exercise climbing that hill!


We determined that two days in Carcassonne is exactly the right duration - you could potentially "do" the town and be gone in one day but then you would miss seeing the sun set over a scene that really hasn't changed much in hundreds of years. Also, you'd be depriving yourself of another 6-8 courses of delicious French food. Indeed, we seemed to spend most of our time deciding where to eat next! The local speciality (and hence centrepiece of countless prix-fixe menus) is Cassoulet, a slow-cooked white-bean casserole of duck and pork - delicious, but there were many other things to enjoy, the only exception being a very rough pork sausage that Bec chose as an entrée, which was a little too pig-sty-esque for our tastes!

We ate like nobles, we took a turn around the château with surely the finest view in all of France, and then we ate like nobles again. Life is tough...

Home Town Toy Time

The Easter break saw us heading to possibly the least exotic holiday destination ever featured in this blog - namely, the county of Rutland, in England's damp and grey East Midlands. Rutland's main claims to fame are:

• Being small - the smallest county in England
• (Possibly due to the first point) Being the only county to not have a McDonald's
  
• (Possibly due to above 2 points) Having the best-performing schools in the country

Fascinating. As you've probably guessed by now, Rutland is the county of Johnny's birth, and he had a long-overdue appointment with one of his best childhood mates, who still lives there. Despite being 6 months younger, James is putting Johnny to shame. He is the Chief Technical Officer of a very successful digital agency, husband to the lovely Emma and father to the adorable Annie-May and Millie.


We had a fantastic time, with James and John seamlessly picking up where they'd left off (after a twelve-year gap) and all the girls getting on like a house on fire. But there was another reason for being in the middle of nowhere. For his double-birthday present from Bec, Johnny was about to drive in a 4-way supercar shootout! Sunday morning saw an endlessly-patient Bec standing around a nearby ex-RAF base in the drizzle, with Johnny driving:

- A Porsche 911 Carrera S (996) - brilliant power and handling. Seemed like just caressing the throttle gave a glorious shove in the back, with the steering giving endless feedback. Lovely solid gearshift and stunning build quality. Truly a car to dream of.

- A Lotus Elise S2 - a road-legal go-kart, but even more fun. A really physical driving experience, with a small sueded wheel and a notchy gearshift. The engine is small and you wring its neck to make progress, but you can chuck it into the corners like nothing else. The greatest weekend-warrior/track day car ever.

- A Ferrari F360 - meh. Yes, believe it or not, the most expensive (by far) in this lineup was also the most disappointing. In the slippery conditions the car could not put its power down to the road (as the instructor said: "The Germans and Japanese are clever enough to properly do traction control, the British save weight by not doing it, and the Italians tried to do it, but made a mess of it"). The "F1-style" semi-automatic flappy-paddle gearbox is a complete waste of money and, literally, time. At full chat it took about 2 seconds to decide to obey a command to change gear! An expensive toy for non-drivers.

- A Subaru Impreza WRX (2006 edition). Driving the Subie was just like meeting up with James again - a great and trusted old friend. The Scoob's All-Wheel-Drive allowed it to carry much higher speed through the corners than anything else on the wet track, and Johnny's top speed at the end of the back straight was the same as in the Porsche. This version felt a little less nimble than Johnny's old "organ-donor express" 1998 model, but also much more solidly screwed together. Truly a giant-killing car.

We're hoping to catch up with James and the gang again very soon - Bec and Emma have now exchanged contact details so there won't be another 12-year radio-silence! And as for the supercars... Elise and Carrera, we'll be back for you later!

Marrakech Mayhem, Part 2: Found

With our confidence rising all the time, we could set our sights on attractions further away from our riad; shaking our heads at dubious offers of assistance and sometimes even laughing at the audacious claims of cheeky young locals. "C'est fermé!" or "It's closed!" is apparently a witty and helpful thing to shout at tourists as they walk along a street. At least there were no sexist slurs - our friend Beth had been on the receiving end of quite a lot of unwanted attention when she visited Marrakech with a female friend.

After checking out the lush Jardin Majorelle we visited the one of the amazing royal palaces, Palais-el-Badi:

After 48 hours in Marrakech, we'd started to notice a pattern - a few hectic hours out on the streets would be followed by a period of recuperation in a quiet restaurant, palace, garden or riad, before we could face the mayhem again - but we were definitely warming to the craziness, the pace, and the sheer inventiveness of the locals. At the risk of being a bikesnob, observe if you will, this superb example of Moroccan bicycle style:

Of note:

• Front brakes completely disconnected
• Rear brakes also purely for decorative purposes
• "Moroccan singlespeed conversion" with gear ratio chosen using the rule "whatever stops the chain from falling off too much"
• Missing seatpost clamp, ingeniously replaced with padlock (Hah! That'll stop 'em!)
• Asymmetrical seat orientation; this actually suits the sidesaddle riding position adopted by most riders for easy ejection (see first two points)
• Cargo rack - this allows the vehicle to carry livestock and building materials with ease. We spotted a full-size front door being carried like this.

We decided to brave an al fresco dinner in the "big square", delving somewhat apprehensively into the crazy maze of smoky, smelly food stalls, teeming with beggars, pickpockets and extremely inventive spruikers. Easily the cheapest meal of the trip, the food was surprisingly good and the atmosphere incredible. We caught this little guy red-handed, trying to relieve Bec of some change!

For our last full day in Morocco we ventured out of the city, our guide Majid taking us into the Atlas Mountains to experience the rural life of the Berber people. Johnny was kept busy translating as Majid was much more comfortable in French than English, but Bec was improving all the time. By the end of this year she will probably be as good at French as she is German, if not better!

The scenery was spectacular, and quite astonishing at times, seeming more Swiss Alp than Moroccan Atlas:

We enjoyed a scrambling climb up multiple waterfalls before heading back into the city for a very different watersport. The Hammam. Neither of us really knew exactly what this was, but we knew it had to be done and Thierry had organised a visit to a very special one close to our riad, operated by another French expat. Veronique gave us a lovely welcome on her rooftop terrasse before Bec was sent off to be Hammam-ed. She came back in a dressing-gown looking somewhat dazed, but refused to give any details to Johnny before he was sent to his fate.

Now, not being at all knowledgeable about ancient North African cleansing rituals, we cannot definitively say that our experience was the norm. If there is an expert reading this, does this sound right?

1. Enter a small bathroom-like cubicle with no fittings beyond taps and drain
   
2. Strip down to bathing suit
3. Large member of the same sex enters the room
4. Large person also strips to bathing suit
5. Large person fills plastic buckets with warm water
6. Large person pours water over client
7. Large person applies soap to client
   
8. Large person flagellates client with what feels like cheese grater (coarse side)
9. Repeat steps 5-8 using ever-finer grating devices until all client skin has been removed
10. Large person sloshes a final 20 litres of water over client
11. Client dons dressing-gown in order to stop internal organs from falling out

Our hammam experience in many ways mirrored our overall impressions of Marrakech; confronting, unfamiliar, a little scary, but somehow simultaneously fascinating, enjoyable and totally unforgettable.

Marrakech Mayhem, Part 1: Lost

There are four levels of being lost:

1. Oh no! We're not going the same way as we did last time! But it's OK, because there's a sign telling us we're still going towards our destination, and frankly, where we are is pretty nice anyway. This variant is frequently experienced in Venice, and is known as Pleasurably Lost.
2. Hmmm. None of this looks familiar, but we've got a map that correlates to the street signs, so we can work this out. This is a feeling you might get in a large foreign city - Lost In Translation.
3. This is not good. Where the hell are the street signs? There are no other tourists around, but I've just got a feeling that if we go towards that thing, we'll get to the nice stuff. This is not a good state to be in for too long - Lost In Space.
4. Omigod omigod omigod. Everything looks the same. No signposts, no landmarks, the map isn't making sense. No tourists, people are telling me things but they want money so I can't trust them. And now there's a crowd of vultures following us. Lost In Marrakech.

Yes, we had a level 4 nightmare when we arrived in Marrakech. We hadn't taken enough notice of our Riad's neighbourhood before venturing out into the madness of this crazy Moroccan city, and we paid dearly. Our lovely host, Thierry from Bordeaux, had drawn a line on our map showing how to navigate back from the main square, but the scale was way too tiny to really help. In the end, in 11pm desperation we had to ask a shopkeeper for assistance - he delegated to a seven-year-old boy who led us through the dark alleyways for what seemed like an eternity, while suspicious characters lurked a few paces behind. At the door to our Riad, we gave him a banknote which would feed him for a week (the smallest thing we had) and he still wanted more. We were scared he and his mates would still be there waiting for us the next morning - not a nice way to spend your first night in a new city.

We had determined that things could only get better from here - and we were right. The next morning, a fantastic breakfast on the sun-drenched terrasse of the riad helped a lot, and we spent a good half hour learning the landmarks near our accommodation so as not to be flummoxed again. Suitably confident, we jumped right into the tourist circuit, taking in the Ben Youssef Medersa, a former religious academy featuring a stunning internal courtyard in the local Arabic tiles-stucco-and-wood style.

Next stop was the Musee de Marrakech, showcasing more of the extravagant interior wall ornamentation. Exterior walls usually form the streets and alleyways, so no effort is spared when it comes to decorating the internal courtyards!

Following a relaxing rooftop lunch we plunged into the exotic, colourful and pungent souks. Your nose really takes a battering in Marrakech, going from the foul smells of poorly-tuned diesel and two-stroke engines in the streets to sweet confections in the patisseries, before turning a corner and having the raw odour of tanning leather grab you in the back of the throat.

After several hours of meandering through the seemingly-endless array of glassware, carpets, pottery and random tat, we found ourselves people-watching at the amazing Djemma-al-Fna square - Marrakech's crowning glory:

And after a couple of Tagines, we headed home nice and early. It had been a much, much better day, and we didn't want to push our luck!

Oyrgpuyrl Cnex

We recently welcomed Brush and Bel to London - primarily they were here to see Wicked, but we got to hang around with them for a few days on either side, which conveniently included John's birthday. We still don't quite know how, but the topic of Bletchley Park came up at Johnny's birthday dinner, and the idea of a nerd-excursion to the home of modern computing was born.


For those who have no idea of the significance of Bletchley Park, and/or haven't seen the film Enigma, here's the quick summary. In WWII, the Germans used a machine called an Enigma to encrypt their radio communications.


It was an electro-mechanical machine which used a system of rotors to ensure that every character was encrypted with a different key to the one before it. The Germans believed their system to be unbreakable. They didn't reckon on the persistence, pluck and absolute brilliance that was assembled at Station X, the "Codes and Ciphers School" based in Bletchley, an hour north of London. Winston Churchill was a very keen supporter of this team of elite chess players, mathematicians and crossword-puzzle solvers, and they didn't let him down. In particular, a mathematician from Cambridge called Alan Turing devised a machine which would test a particular "crib" or suspected Enigma configuration in just 15 minutes, enabling the British to stay one step ahead of the Germans and ultimately win the war. This machine, the "Bombe" was the forerunner to the computer sitting in front of you right now. What makes it even more incredible is that your machine would take roughly twice as long to crack the code, such was the power of Turing's design.

Bletchley Park is now a museum, showcasing the fascinating work that was done at Station X, including guided tours of the various huts, and lectures from clever people who understand some of the technology. We sat in on a one-hour "Introduction to the Enigma" lecture, which was superb, and gave us an idea why the Germans believed their device to be unbreakable - there are 150 million million million possible configurations!

There simply wasn't enough time to see it all - luckily, the ticket gives admission for a whole year, so nerd-boy here can come back again and again...

Such A Nice Land

Credit Crunch. Economic slowdown. Financial crisis. It would not be an exaggeration to say that every British TV and print article in the last 6 months has contained one of the above phrases, or alluded to it with the classic "... in the current climate". The once-proud nation of Iceland copped an absolute spanking from the world's financial institutions and is quietly licking its wounds, probably hoping to get on board with the Euro and regain some stability. In the meantime though, their carrier Icelandair has been offering some excellent deals to entice people to their chilly, currently cashflow-challenged capital Reykjavik.

We kicked off early on Saturday morning with a Golden Circle tour with David - an expat Englishman who has been in Iceland since the mid-80's. He was a goldmine of information about the place, and all the changes that have happened since he arrived. His first point was that Iceland is about the same size as England, but their populations are 312,000 and 45 million, respectively. Take away 100,000 children and 50,000 wrinklies, and you've only got about 150,000 people to do the work and pay taxes. Yet somehow, Iceland has created a complete first-world infrastructure with roads, communications, power, schools etc.

The whole nation was basically funded by fish - but as stocks started to deplete and fishing quotas took hold, Iceland had to start looking for other things that they either had in abundance or could support with relatively little investment in people and funds. To this end they have become a world leader in harnessing geothermal power. The other thing they tried was international banking...

But enough of that stuff. The natural delights of Iceland were what we had come for, and it delivered, big-time.

This is the geyser at Geysir, which does its thing roughly every four minutes:

We lasted about 5 minutes beside the mighty waterfall at Gulfoss - the wind was blowing about -30°C right into our faces as we looked at it:


We met some lovely Icelandic Horses, all wrapped up in their thick winter coats.


That night we embarked on a less-successful tour - to hunt down the Northern Lights. After four hours of fruitless pootling along mountain roads, our Icelandic guide apologised - despite a reasonably-favourable forecast, it just wasn't going to happen for us. Damn.

We had another busy schedule the following day, kicking off with some Icelandic Horse riding! It's been illegal to import horses to Iceland for many years, so these sturdy units have been on their own evolutionary branch, developing a couple of unique "gaits" in addition to the usual walk, trot and gallop. Bec had been looking forward to this for a while, with Johnny slightly less enthused, having never actually ridden a horse before. Once we got going however, his natural speed-freak tendencies took over, and when the group divided into "slow" and "fast" there was barely any decision time required! The pace gradually increased, finishing with Kistil (Bec's horse) and Scroggi galloping over the snowy landscape. Yes, they're only small, and their little legs mean they don't go that fast, but it's still pretty fun!


To soothe the aching horsey-interfacing bits, we took a dip in the amazing Blue Lagoon - superheated water comes up through cracks in the Earth's crust, picking up all sorts of lovely minerals on its way, and fills up these pools in a lava-field, ending up at a delightful 37-40°C. You would think it was man-made, it's so perfect. But like almost everything you see in Iceland, it's just a by-product of being on the join of the American and Eurasian tectonic plates.


For our last meal in Reykjavik, we headed to a unique Icelandic Tapas restaurant that had been recommended by Yorkshire holidaymakers Andrew and Carly who had taken the Golden Circle tour with us the previous day. Behold! Puffin meat with a blueberry sauce - dark and delicious; and Minke Whale with cranberry sauce. Started out tasting like roast beef, but ended up tasting like fish - Bec was undecided, Johnny not a fan.


When it comes to Iceland however, we're unanimous - fantastic!

The French Family Félix

As some readers may know, John's Mum is French. Her brother and his family live in the south-east of France in the city of Grenoble, right at the foot of the Alps. We have visited them on several occasions in the past, while holidaying in Europe, but had not managed to see them at all since moving to England. Early this year, we decided that simply was not good enough, and promptly booked cheap(ish) flights for the first weekend in February. (Naturally we cleared it with them first).

Grenoble, as you can imagine, is an incredibly picturesque place. With the Isère river running through it and the impressive backdrop of the Alps, you feel surrounded by natural beauty. We had hoped for the possibility of more skiing, as there are numerous ski resorts within easy driving distance, but unfortunately the weather let us down. It was all rather grey and drizzly, dully reminiscent of the London weather we'd left behind us. We didn't let that spoil our fun though, instead spending a very enjoyable Saturday afternoon strolling through the nearby town of Annecy with John's aunt and uncle, Dominique and Pierre.
















On the Saturday evening we were treated to a Félix family feast, complete with five delicious courses. John's cousins, Anne and Laure, joined us with their partners and Anne's two little boys, Lucas (pronounced Luca) and Nathan (Na-ton), the latter providing much entertainment with his inexhaustible 3-year-old energy and endless French chatter. It was a jolly group, with conversation flowing in both French and English. John's French flourished but while Bec tried her best, she was grateful for the presence of a few English speakers to ease the pressure.

Merci beaucoup to Pierre and Dominique for your warm hospitality, which we hope to repay one day soon.