Did I just finish saying that we have met the most wonderful people as a result of Maison des Pelerins and La Baume des Pelerins?

The next three Blogs will really bear this out.

During the month of April, we were very fortunate to have Ling Lau and Loren List as guests at Maison des Pelerins.  They were on a tour of Europe and stopped in Sablet for a week. 
Loren is a talented professional photographer, and so spent much of his time
looking for good "photo ops". 

Last week, I arrived home to a very large FedEx Package! 
In it was a stunning portfolio of photographs
 - our village and some of its residents so beautifully captured in print....
 ...........Courtesy of Loren and Ling!
 As if the pictures weren't generous enough,
Ling had kept a very charming and beautifully written Journal of her trip. 
Ling and Loren have very kindly permitted me to share Ling's Journal
and display some of his photographs on this blog. 

I have broken the Journal and the pictures up into three parts
and hope you will enjoy reading it as much as I did.
As I mentioned, Loren is a professional photographer so 
if anyone might be interested in seeing more of his work, please let me know.

I have shown pictures of Loren's pictures as the originals are 24" x 18" and too big for my scanner.
The Originals are far superior in photo quality, but the composition is so wonderful
that I wanted to share them on this blog. 

LING’S  SABLET JOURNAL 

April 24^th  

We got up early in anticipation of a long day of travel.  We calculated the distance 
 from La Pineda, Spain to Sablet, France to be around 330 miles. 
It would be mostly highway and 30 km of country roads.

 It took us 30 minutes to get out of town and on to the AP7. 
Around Girona we came across the biggest traffic jam caused by an accident. 
We travelled 3.5 km in 45 minutes. 
The cause of this mess was a wreck among 3 big rigs transporting oranges and veggies. 
The emergency crews were busy moving crates and spilled oranges to the shoulder. 
The middle rig was completely accordioned.  This unexpected event put us behind schedule.

 We stopped by the first aire (rest stop for travelers)  in the French side. 
Pressing for time, we bought some sandwiches and ate them in the car. 

I made a wrong turn when I tried to pull over to a gas station.
Instead I exited the highway and had to turn around after paying the tolls. 
More precious minutes lost in the process.

When we got to Orange, we had more than made up lost time. 
After a few wrong turns, we found the winding and narrow (2 way) country road leading to Sablet. 
In the town square, we  found parking (rather lucky). 
We walked into the local bar and ordered some drinks. 
The owner lent us his cell phone so we called our contact, Marianne (on site manager). 
She lived 45 minutes away.  We sat at the bar looking at the beautiful vista
(rolling hills terraced with vineyards).  We heard a couple of American gentlemen
talking about their time in Chicago and Cleveland.  It was very funny that we left home for 3 weeks without any sighting of an American, only to find some in such a small village in the middle of France.

Marianne showed up on time with 2 crying boys.  She said hello to me in perfect Mandarin.  What a coincidence!   She used to work in Tianjin.  Her husband was a professional photographer!

The house, La Maison des Pelerins, situated immediately behind a 12 and 14 century church (Eglise de Nazzare), was a charmer, very spacious, living room, dining room, state of the art kitchen, breakfast nook, garden, 2 king-size bedrooms en suite.  The décor was very Provencal style. 
It has all the modern amenities: TV, DVD, wifi, washer and DRYER.

I took a big risk driving the car up the winding and narrow paths to the front of the church
into one of 4 parking slots. 
The car, equipped with proximity alarms, rang and sounded all the way when I drove up.

We ate a simple dinner at the only local restaurant (Les Remaprts).

April 25

We had to do our shopping in the morning since all stores were to be closed on Sunday afternoons. 
We raced down to main street (one block long). 
Loran was distracted by a photo op, a lady painting the fountain. 




I went to pick up the camera and returned to find them conversing in English. 
The lady is from South Carolina and staying here for 1 month with her husband and another couple. 
The ladies have been painting at a different village everyday.

We did some shopping at the local grocery and butcher. 
I made chicken drumsticks with veggies for lunch. 
Nice for a change. Laundry was also done and DRIED.

Time to head downtown for some coffee. 
Loran, the photographer, was fascinated by a group of locals playing a card game in the bar. 
Again, I raced off to fetch his tools.

Afternoon was spent reading and online.

The weather was glorious, in the 80’s, actually a bit too hot for us.

The church and the house are on the highest ground, the short cut has 38 steps.

April 26

It was about ten when we had our breakfast.  I went down to the boulangerie
and bought pain au chocolate and a baguette. 





Fresh grapefruit and orange juice was prepared by Loran. 
Immediately after that, I put some veggies (eggplant, fennel, potato and carrot)
and veal into the crock pot setting it to fast cook for lunch. 
Loran did some photographing around the house. 
Around noon, the crock pot did not show any progress in the cooking. 
We rushed down to the village hoping to buy something for lunch before the stores closed for lunch. 
We did find one grocer open and grabbed whatever we needed.

Loren wanted me to drive the car back down to the village and he would photograph me
...... maneuvering the car around the tight corner.  …………… to be continued!