Narbonne Day 2 and onward

Disaster struck today, but we knew nothing about it as we strolled through the street of Narbonne on a mission to find somewhere which would serve us Croque-Monsieur for breakfast. First attempts were none too successful, and we were on the point of settling for crepes instead when we came across a good old-fashioned French café which looked the bizz and turned out to be the saviour we'd been looking for. It wasn't the best imaginable croque-monsieur, but it certainly filled the morning spot and got us off to a good start. Thankfully, part of finding it was also part of a much improved experience of Narbonne itself, which was much more of a happening place than it had been last night.

We were aware of the need to get back to the hotel, check out, and move on, but we decided that we could spare some time at least around the Hotel de Ville, the most striking old building in the town. Another glorious sunny morning showed off the old stonework at its best, and we especially enjoyed the climb up the grand staircase in the old tower. I'm a bit of a sucker for this sort of through-an-archway shot, and I couldn't resist this view of the fine square outside, seen from inside the building complex.

The grand plan for today's part of The Grand Tour was the journey from Narbonne to Perpignan, where we were to stay overnight and from where we were to get the train to Barcelona tomorrow. The car trip was really, really good. The countryside along the way is wonderfully impressive, and the gloriously bright and clear weather made it all the better. We stopped a few times to admire the view and had a bit of a longer stop at a windy etange at the Lagoon of Salses/Leucate. Th place was swarming with wind surfers, for whom the strong winds must have been pure paradise. The views and the facilities further on towards Perpignan, around Leucate itself, were magnificent, but we didn't have time to stop and enjoy them because of the need to leave back our rental car by 5.00 pm.

Finding a petrol station to top up the tank was an interesting experience which took a fair while and made us glad we hadn't stopped any more on the way. We eventually sorted ourselves out, dropped off the car and checked in to our hotel. Only after a bit of a siesta did we go up the road to the railway station to check out the situation with our ticket to Barcelona. We'd got caught up in Marseille in a French Day of Action, but disruption had been relatively minor. Not so with tomorrow's National Strike in Spain, though! Our train has been cancelled, and all we've been able to do was to get a ticket for the same time on Thursday instead. Even that isn't guaranteed, and we have to check again tomorrow to see if that train will be okay. We were in touch with our getting-married friends in Sitges earlier and they felt we should be okay on Thursday, and didn't understand why there should be confusion about that here in France. All we can do is hope for the best. We thought for a bit about maybe hiring a car again, but the cost is prohibitive.

It was reassuring afterwards to find that Perpignan remains open and alive later than some of the other places we've been to. There was a fine choice of restaurants on offer, and we were happy with the Catalan one we finally chose. Bars were open too, but we only had one drink on the way back to the hotel.