Blogging Blitz, Part 2: The Mediterranean, this time of year it's so fashionable

I would say that we got up at the crack of dawn on Wednesday, were it not for the fact that we beat the dawn by a good hour or so, rising at 5:30 so as to be on the road by 6. There were five of us heading down to Banyuls-sur-Mer: myself, Val, Adélaïde, Adélaïde’s friend Solène, and Lucas, a friend of Val’s as well as Bart’s who I had met my first night in Chartrettes and compared college tuitions with.

I can’t offer much of a description of the ride down, as I slept in the back seat for most of it. I only woke up occasionally, each time amazed by the transformation that had taken place in the scenery passing by outside.

We made three stops along the way, for coffee, lunch, and to stock up on food. Val and co. will be staying in Banyuls for three weeks, working at the nearby vineyards harvesting grapes, so we loaded up the grocery cart to capacity with pasta, bread, nutella, and a few condimentary afterthoughts. It was around 5 pm that we finally rolled down the hill into Banyuls-sur-Mer.

Banyuls is a cute little seaside town along the French Mediterranean coast, a mere six miles from the Spanish border. Its prime location has allowed the town’s residents to prosper off the plentiful resources of the region: grapes, fish, and summer tourists, though the tourists have apparently all but disappeared with the end of the summer holiday. The town center, consisting of a few restaurants and novelty shops organized around a small square, sits just next to the beach, with the rest of the town spreading backwards uphill toward the mountains.

The Léons have an apartment right in town, less than a block from the beach. It’s a great place, just big enough, I’d imagine, to comfortably fit a family of seven. French doors in both the kitchen and living room open out onto a gorgeous terrace overlooking the town square and, just beyond that, the Mediterranean. We unpacked the car, put away the food, and, wasting no more time, headed down to the beach for an evening swim.

The beach was strikingly different from those I’ve grown accustomed to at home (although, admittedly, my familiarity is predominantly limited to Cape Cod and the occasional trip to Rhode Island). Where I’m used to sand, the shoreline was covered in small smooth stones, something I expected to dislike, but have grown to appreciate. The stones are small enough and smooth enough that they are not uncomfortable to walk on, and there is the unforeseen benefit of never having anything get sandy. The water, though cold at first touch, quickly warms to a gloriously comfortable temperature and it is a clear brilliant blue through which the sandy bottom always looks deceptively close. About 100 yards out, there’s a floating wooden dock, large enough for four to comfortably sunbathe while a fifth performs running dives off the edge. We stayed on the beach for about an hour, made use of the beach-side showers, and about a minute later we were all comfortably seated back on the Léons’ patio.

We cooked pasta for dinner, followed by some kind of lemon cream cake brought over by Val and Adé’s grandmother, who lives in Banyuls. The pasta was delicious after being on the beach and the cake would have been heavenly under any conditions. After dinner, we went for a walk down by the water, lounged around the patio some more, and finally trickled off to bed one by one.

This morning I awoke bright and early at 11:30 (making up, I suppose, for yesterday’s premature awakening) to find that Val, Adé, and Solène had long ago left for work, leaving the house to me and Lucas, whose job doesn’t start until next week. After I fixed myself a breakfast of bread and nutella, the two of us went for a walk that eventually led us down to the beach where we went for a swim. Returning to the apartment, we fixed ourselves some pasta for lunch and soon after that the grape pickers returned home. After a day in the hot sun, the farmhands had just one thing on their minds, so we all headed back to the beach for a (second) swim.

We were joined shortly before dinner by two more of Val’s friends (I have to admit I missed their names during the rapid French introductions) who have also come south to pick grapes in the morning and hit the beach in the afternoon. It was as we were sitting down to dinner that we heard what sounded like a large number of brass instruments tuning all at once. Looking out from the patio, the town square was all lit up and there, on a stage that had been erected at one side of the square, was a large number of brass instruments all tuning at once. Val explained that once a week there are large circle dances held in the square and, no sooner had he said this, than the septuagenarians of Banyuls-sur-Mer began to assemble around the square’s periphery. We sat down to eat with the, initially charming and eventually tiresome, strains of French circle dance music drifting up from below. The band was good, making up in gusto what their repertoire lacked in variety, and by the time we finished dinner, there was an enthusiastic throng of dancers circling the square.

After dinner, as the others watched television (in French), I sat on the patio and read a book (in English) while listening to the band below me wrap up their gig for the evening. And now I’m off to bed. I’ve got to rest up for tomorrow: another busy day of…relaxing on the beach.