On our way to Perpignan

A cup of gooey cacao, the real stuff, it takes a little getting use to. A slice of fruit cake. My sister always wants to know what we ate. I remember having breakfast in Nice, a coffee and a roll, maybe we nibbled on some stuff on the train, this when we reached Perpignan and tapas for dinner.

The tapas restaurant near our hotel, we had the greatest meal.

A pretty painting in a bookstore.

Even the trash truck is pretty.

The Catalan colors, red and yellow.

The body of the trash truck.

We left Nice on a rainy morning for the train ride to Perpignan at the French/Spanish border. Two hours later we were in sunny Marseilles, the rain had stopped and the sun is out. The station in Marseilles sits on top of a hill and there's a plaza outside where we could sit and wait. I was in Marseilles 8 years ago, it's OK. Sophie hasn't been in Marseilles. Then our train came and we took it to Montpelier where we had to change trains again, this time finally for Perpignan. We would have reached Perpignan sooner except for a sector of the trip, the train sat still on the tracks.

Some guy (he's on something) rode the rails without a ticket. The conductor couldn't get him to cough up the fare and the fine. They brought in at least 6 big French guys, train security people, all armed with guns and handcuffs. They talked and reasoned with the guy for at least half an hour or more, they turn everything into a philosophical discussion. It worked, the guy finally produced two 100 euros bills, it's much more than the fare and fine, he just needed everyone to know he has money and is no bum. Does this work in international matters, negotiate with terrorists? It only works if everyone has the same world view to avoid armed conflict. What is one party is hellbent on the destruction of another? I digress.

An American guy sitting next to us, said 'how about that?' I said, in Los Angeles, the cops or security people would have cuffed the guy, throw him off the train and called the local cops and booked him on something.

We finally reached Perpignan, we weren't sure where we were, it didn't feel like France. It distinctly has the Catalan feel to it. The colors of the Catalan flag was evident every where, the orange and yellow. It's as if they are saying, 'we're Catalan while being French.' We, quickly found our hotel, it's just across the street from the train station. I had originally planned to stay 3 nights but changed my mind to 2 nights. I want to give the extra day to our next stop, Barcelona. This was a wise decision, not that there isn't anything to see in Perpignan, there was, but I would like to spend more time in Barcelona.

We asked and got instructions to the old town. It's pretty. It was getting late in the evening, all the shops were closed, so was the beautiful church. Pity, that would be our only visit to old town Perpignan. The next day we would be everywhere, from the sea to the mountains.

We walked back to the hotel and dropped in a tapas restaurant and had some delicious tapas. So many places, so little time....