Colombiers

Outside our Colombiers B&B window, chickens cluck in a neighboring yard. Beyond our pool and summer house, where breakfast is served and rugby matches watched, boats chug slowly by on the Canal du Midi. Cyclists spin silently by on the Canal's towpath. Above the Canal, giant treetops rustle in the refreshing wind, their leaves bobbing and swinging as though the trees were rotating their necks. The pines closer in sway in the breeze, and palm fronds shake like pompoms above the red-tiled roof of the summer house. From somewhere in the trees, palombes (wood pigeons) call to each other with a whip-poor-will sound. 

Colombiers is lovely. We have bicycled along the Canal du Midi, climbed up a high hill to see ruins of an ancient village, and viewed the Malpas Tunnel, which is famous as an engineering marvel from the 1600s and 1800s with Roman road on top layer, then below the Canal du Midi, and beneath that a railroad tunnel, and beneath that, a pipe to transport water. Photo of museum model below.

Francoise and her mother invited us for dinner one night, and this afternoon, we'll go to "downtown" Colombiers, which is about six shops and three restaurants, for a local festival and exposition of locally produced products.

Last Wednesday's canoeing adventure under the Pont du Gard and yesterday's lively market in Pezenas are stories to tell, but I'll have to do it when I have a better connection. A bientot.