We had a 07.10 flight from Stansted to Valencia this morning as the start to our two weeks away in Spain and France. It sounded okay until I started counting backwards on Saturday afternoon and realised that if the airport parking was booked for 04.30, we'd need to leave home at 02.30. Oh dear!

The only good thing about leaving home so early is that there was hardly any other traffic on the roads and we got to Stansted in record time. And the good thing about flying on a Sunday was that the airport itself wasn't quite so crazily busy as it sometimes is on Saturdays. The Ryanair check-in went smoothly, and we were sitting in Wetherspoons having breakfast by 5am!

I had a much-needed Wetherspoons coffee, which kept me awake long enough to board the plane (but not much beyond that!). My aim was to stay awake until we had at least taken off, but somehow the coffee didn't seem to be quite strong enough and I nodded off during the Spanish version of the safety demonstration. Next thing I knew it was 8am and we were flying over what looked like a very sunny France. I haven't had the winning combination of a window seat and a clear sky for quite some time and I remember thinking to myself that I really ought to stay awake and look at the view... but next thing I remember was over an hour later when the captain announced that we were starting our descent to Valencia!

The view as we came in to land was really beautiful as we flew over some rather dusty-looking mountains and then along the Spanish coast. The sea was a brilliant shade of blue and for a while it looked like we were in danger of landing in it, but Valencia appeared just at the right moment and we were down.

Valencia airport itself seemed rather peculiar. Everyone got off the plane and then stood in a queue, as one of the Ryanair air hostesses held us back and periodically allowed small groups of people to cross the road to the terminal building. When it was eventually our turn, we realised that the passport control desks were situated almost immediately after you walked through the door to the building, so that the queue of people was actually outside and the air hostess was trying to make sure it didn't get so long it spilled out onto the road part of the runway. Luckily it seemed like a wonderfully sunny day in Valencia, and so queueing outside didn't seem like a great hardship. I don't think it would work so well at Stansted!

We couldn't check into our accommodation until 4pm so stopped for a drink at the airport before heading into the main town. The airport isn't situated very far from the centre of Valencia itself and is connected to the main town via an underground metro. The journey probably took about twenty minutes, and then we emerged into the sunlight just outside this impressive building.

Believe it or not, this elaborate building is the main railway station in Valenica.

Inside the building is just as unusual as outside. This is the ticket hall.

The station is located right next to Valencia's bullring, which looks a bit like a Roman amphitheatre, though is obviously a lot more modern.

We were fairly hungry by this stage so decided to investigate somewhere to eat. Ignoring the ubiquitous signs for paella, we eventually found a small Italian restaurant where we were able to order pizza. I was very excited upon reading the drinks menu to find something called "tinto de verano" which was translated on the English menu as being "wine with lemon fanta". I definitely needed to try this to see how it compared to Croatian miš-maš

It turned out to be very similar, albeit not stripy as the wine was already mixed through the Fanta It wasn't quite as sweet as miš-maš, probably because it was lemon fanta rather than orange, and it wasn't quite as alcoholic as miš-maš either; I think there was only a small amount of wine in it. It was very refreshing though.

The restaurant was very relaxed and didn't object to me sipping my drink very slowly as we tried to kill some time until we could check in. Eventually we decided to try our luck checking in a bit earlier than we were supposed to, and set off through Valencia in the direction of the hotel. I was surpised by how grand many of the buildings in the town centre seemed to be.

We soon found ourselves in what we think must be the city's main square, Plaza del Ayuntamiento.

There were some enormous palm trees...

... and a beautiful fountain as well.

We could see from the map that our hotel was near the cathedral, so we walked in that general direction.

The cathedral looks stunning, but difficult to capture in a photo close up. We will have to try again tomorrow.

We arrived at the hotel at some point after three and the receptionists didn't blink an eyelid when we asked to check in. Seems like we could have got away with arriving even earlier after all! We're staying in an aparthotel, so we have a nice suite with a kitchenette. It seems incredibly roomy after the tiny boat cabin we stayed in when we visited Stockholm

We were fairly tired again by this point so had a nap before heading out for an evening stroll around Valencia. It looks like a really interesting city and I'm looking forward to seeing more of it tomorrow

We woke up to a beautiful sunny day here in Valencia, though waking up felt a little bit painful even after nine hours' sleep. We had paid €4 for breakfast in our hotel in advance, but when we checked in yesterday the receptionist had tried to convince us we wanted to pay an additional €5 to upgrade it to a more superior sort of breakfast. €9 seemed like a lot to pay so we declined, but I wasn't sure what was going to await us when we went downstairs this morning! It turned out to be okay though; just a cup of coffee, glass of orange juice and a rather sticky croissant. Admittedly that wasn't terribly filling, so we decided to aim for an early lunch as soon as it got to midday. The extra €5 would have entitled you to an omelette as well, which didn't really seem worth it!

We set out shortly after breakfast to start exploring more of Valencia. First of all we retraced our steps back to the cathedral, which we had passed yesterday when looking for our hotel.

This time we walked all the way around it, searching for the best angle for a photo.

From a distance it's possible to see quite how big it is...

... whereas up close you can only really capture a few of the buildings at a time.

Round the back of the cathedral there is a useful model which shows all the different buildings and towers in the complex.

It was only just after 9am at this stage, but the sun was already incredibly hot...

...though the blue sky made a beautiful backdrop for photos.

We spent some time strolling around the old town.

Valencia isn't really a city I've heard or read much about before, so I was surprised at how much beautiful architecture there seemed to be at every turn.

I was also surprised at how many orange trees we seemed to pass on every other street. If you look carefully at this picture, you should just be able to make out some oranges on the trees.

Another thing which seems to be quite common in Valencia is beautiful blue-tiled roofs on churches. This one popped up on the horizon as we were walking down one of the side streets, though when we got closer we couldn't actually find the church.

After we had wandered for a while we found ourselves at the edge of the old town, which was marked by the impressive Torres de Serranos.

Our map indicated that we were not far away from the botanical gardens, and as our city guide to Valencia had suggested that entry to these was free, we decided to explore. The gardens actually turned out to be surprisingly difficult to find, being hidden away behind a wall, and when we finally got there we discovered that the guidebook was out of date and it wasn't free entrance after all. But in studying the map for this particular area of the town in detail, something else caught Tim's attention: Calle del Doctor Zamenhof! It was only a couple of streets away from where we were standing, so we just had to go and explore.

It turned out to be quite a long street and we walked along it for several minutes, passing numerous signs along the way.

So much for avoiding Esperanto on this holiday!

When we left Zamenhof Street, we found ourselves near to the Turia park. The Turia is a large river which used to run through the centre of Valencia, until there was a huge flood in 1957. After that the town authorities diverted the course of the river so that it now flows around the city instead. The old river bed has been converted into a long park which runs through the centre of Valencia for 9km. It was a pleasant place to stroll, with palm trees of all shapes and sizes.

We walked through the park for a while, and then when it got close to midday we turned back into the centre of town to investigate places to eat. Finding something to eat can be a tricky business in Spain, particularly if you don't want to eat paella or any other variation on theme of fish, but eventually we did find somewhere that had a promising menu of the day: spaghetti bolognaise for a starter, roast chicken for the main course and ice-cream for dessert

After lunch we went back to the hotel for a while to have a rest and escape the worst of the sun. It was late afternoon when we ventured out again, with the intention of walking through the rest of the Turia park towards the coast. One of the strange things about walking through the park is that because it is an old river bed, it is criss-crossed by numerous bridges. Some of them looked rather old...

...while others were covered in beautiful flowers. The most surprising thing about this one was that whoever had built the bridge had cut holes in it for the palm trees to grow up from the ground!

As we neared the end of the park, we encountered a space-age collection of buildings which seemed rather a contrast to the architecture in the city centre.

This is 'Ciudad de las Artes y Ciencias', a huge cultural complex which was constructed in the late 90's. The buildings include a cinema, science museum and acquarium.

This large blue building was my favourite; apparently it is called L'Àgora and houses concerts and sporting events.

By this point we were at the end of the river park, which meant we were nearly at the sea. Valencia has a large port, from which ferries depart to the Balaeric islands. Valencia was selected as the destination for the America's Cup, a large yachting regatta in 2007, and so the entire harbour area has been spruced up.

I was quite excited to find these cactus plants near the sea front

The palm trees were impressive too.

We stopped for a drink to cool down and then had a little stroll along the (very sandy!) beach before heading back to the hotel for the evening.

We're off to Tarragona in the morning but have had a great time in Valencia, and I'd definitely like to come back another time

We woke up to another beautifully sunny day in Valencia and another sticky croissant and coffee in the hotel. We hadn't had an evening meal last night because we had been so full after our three-course lunch, with the result that we felt this morning that a solitary croissant just wasn't going to cut it. We checked out of the hotel and had a quick stop off at McDonalds on the way to the station for a second breakfast!

The station we were heading for wasn't the pretty Estació del Nord which we had seen the other day, but a more modern station called Joaquín Sorolla which is about 700m behind the Estació del Nord. This where the high speed trains to Madrid and Barcelona depart from. It was nowhere near as pretty as the other station, looking more like a shed than anything else, but it was quite unusual inside with everyone having to pass their luggage through an airport-style security scanner before being allowed onto the platform to catch the train.

We had pre-booked our tickets online a few weeks ago to get a better price, which was also good as it meant we had a reserved seat. The train turned out to be quite posh inside, with plenty of legroom and a screen telling us what speed we were travelling at, and we had a pleasant journey towards Tarragona, at times with mountains on one side of the train and the coast on the other.

It was about 1.30 when we arrived in Tarragona, which turned out to be built on a hill. The main way from the station to the town centre appeared to be via some relentlessly steep staircases, which we didn't really fancy with our luggage, so we crossed the road from the station to consult a map and find an alternative route. Can you spot what the first thing we saw was when we looked at the map?!

Yes, that's right - there is a street named Doctor Zamenhof in Tarragona!!

We needed to have lunch before the restaurants stopped serving and we soon found a pleasant little place which was advertising its menu of the day for €9. We had a first course of penne carbonara, a second course of hamburger and chips and tiramisu for dessert. Don't think we'll be needing any dinner tonight either! We also enjoyed a bottle of the local wine, but when we came to pay at the end we found that our bill was only €20. It seemed like the waiter had missed off the wine, charging us for two menus of the day at €9 each plus €2 for a beer Tim had had. When Tim tried to explain that we needed to pay for the wine, he shook his head and said that a drink was included in the price of the meal!

After what may be this holiday's best-value lunch, we set off uphill again to find our hotel. This is another aparthotel, situated on Rambla Nova, which is the main street in Tarragona. By complete coincidence, it turned out to be exactly the same hotel that Tim had stayed in when he visited Tarragona last autumn!

We checked into our room, enjoyed the air-conditioning for a bit, then headed out for a stroll around Tarragona.

There were various monuments, of varying degrees of unusualness(!), in the central part of Rambla Nova.

We decided to try and track down the Zamenhof street for a photo opportunity, but were slightly hindered by not having a town plan of Tarragona. As we were wandering around in what we hoped was the correct general direction of the street, we came across our first Roman remains. They weren't the most impressive remains we've ever seen - in fact it was a bit difficult to work out what they were - but a helpful info board explained that there used to be a Roman theatre on the site.

Just around the corner, we finally found Zamenhof street

It wasn't quite as long as the Zamenhof Street in Valencia, and weirdly they had spelled Zamenhof with a double f on some of the signs.

Mission accomplished, we began walking back towards Rambla Nova. On the way we came across the old Roman forum.

These ruins seemed a bit more impressive

We walked to the opposite end of Rambla Nova.

There's an amazing viewpoint here out over the sea.

It was still unbelievably sunny, even though it was around 7pm!

Tarragona seems like an interesting place. Tomorrow we're looking forward to exploring more of the old town and Roman ruins

The breakfast in our Tarragona hotel had cost nearly €6, so we were interested to see when we got up this morning whether it would be more substantial than the croissant we had been treated to in Valencia. The good news is that it turned out to be a proper hotel buffet breakfast with cheese, ham and pastries, so much more filling!

I'd slept in slightly later than intended so it was nearly 10am before we left the hotel to start exploring the old town of Tarragona. Our first stop was the old city walls.

These were first built during Roman times, when Tarragona was a fortified city known as Tarraco. They were then expanded during medieval times and in the eighteenth century during the war of Spanish Succession.

There's a nice path which goes around the remaining parts of the walls and is dotted with Roman remains and rather scary-looking cannon.

There were also some statutes, including this frightening one of Romulus and Remus.

In some places we just about had a view out to sea...

...and in other places there were beautiful flowers.

It cost us €7.40 each for a ticket that would allow us to walk around the walls, as well as visiting three additional Roman attractions in Tarragona.

Once we had finished walking on the walls, we made our way into the centre of the old town where we found Tarragona's cathedral.

It was not quite as big a building as Valencia, but still very beautiful.

Not far from the cathedral was the Pretorium, a large Roman tower which in more recent times has been used as a prison.

This was the second attraction which our Tarragona ticket allowed us to visit, so we decided to give it a go. There were quite a few steps to climb...

...but once we got to the top we were rewarded with some amazing views.

We could see back towards the old town and the cathedral...

...and also down towards the Roman amphitheatre.

That was our third destination. We climbed back down the tower and walked through some rather dark vaults...

...before getting back out into the fresh air.

We didn't have far to walk to reach the amphitheatre.

It wasn't quite as grand as the one we visited in Pula last year, but it couldn't have had a more beautiful setting, right next to the sea.

The sun was baking by this point so we decided to find some shade for lunch. I had a lasagne and Tim had a beef stew for around €7 each, which seemed like great value. Then we went back to the hotel for a while to cool down and enjoy the air-conditioning!

Later in the afternoon we ventured outside once again to visit destination number four, the Roman forum. We had caught a glimpse of this from outside yesterday.

It was unusual seeing the remains in the middle of a street, with blocks of normal housing on either side.

Overall we've had a fascinating day in Tarragona and it was definitely worth buying the ticket to see all the different attractions. Although there are other tourists here, nowhere has been particularly busy; there were only two other people walking around the forum this afternoon, for example. It definitely is possible to visit Spain and avoid the hordes

We left Tarragona behind this morning and took a regional train in the direction of Barcelona. Our ultimate destination was Mataró, a town on the coast of Catalonia, about 30km north of Barcelona. We had to change at the busy Barcelona Sants station from a normal regional train onto a smaller suburban service. The view from both trains was beautiful as we made our way along the coast, in some places with the train seeming to travel right along the beach

It was mid-afternoon when we arrived in Mataró and so our first priority was to find somewhere to have lunch. We wandered around the town centre for a while before finding a small restaurant with a menu of the day for 11 euros. The only catch was that it was written entirely in Catalan. Tim managed to recognise key words such as 'salad' and 'fish' to rule out certain menu items, and with the aid of Google Translate we managed to narrow it down to a first course of spaghetti bolognaise and a second course of chicken breast in honey. The latter sounds rather unusual, but it was actually a beautiful combination of flavours. For pudding we had a chocolate mousse and it was all accompanied by a jug of white wine, which once again didn't appear on the bill and once again Tim was assured that it was included in the price of the meal when he queried it!

At 3pm we were able to check into our hotel, which we knew was located near the train station on the sea front. It wasn't until we got the key to our room though that we realised what a wonderful view of the sea we had.

This was the view from our balcony.

Once we had settled in, we set out again to explore Mataró. First stop was the beach.

There was so much beautiful sand, and only a handful of other people to share it with.

We then moved on to the town centre, which is compact but has some pretty churches.

This one is the main basilica.

Our plan for the evening was to meet up with an Esperanto friend who we hadn't seen for a number of years, except for Tim's visit to the Catalan Esperanto congress last autumn.

As we were sitting outside with a drink, our friend explained that today was a special day in Catalonia; the festival of Sant Joan. Although on the face of it it sounds like this ought to be some sort of religious festival, in reality it seems more to do with fire and the fact that the night of the 23 June is the shortest night in the year. In the centre of Mataró, the celebrations started when some representatives of the town arrived in the centre bearing a torch which we understand had been lit on a special mountain somewhere else in Catalonia. It looked like they had carried it a long way.

There was then some Catalan music, including the Catalan national anthem, accompanied by a lot of waving of Catalan flags. There were also some blue flags with a red cross, which our friend explained to us were the town flag of Mataró.

Four enormous dolls were paraded into the town centre...

...where they proceeded perform special dances with one another.

The dolls represented a royal family who had won a decisive victory against Arab invaders at some point in Catalan history.

There was an infectious mood of celebration in the streets and as we walked to a bar in a different part of town, Tim acquired his very own Catalan flag from a man who was giving them away

We thought that might be the end of the festivities, but our friend had other ideas and arranged for us to gatecrash a special Sant Joan party which was being held in his brother's flat. We felt a little bit awkward about this given that we don't speak Catalan and so couldn't really communicate with most of the other guests, but no one seemed to mind in the slightest and we were made to feel extremely welcome as we sat down to an unexpected feast.

As well as normal food like pizza, there were all kinds of local specialities, including more different types of sausage than we would ever have had the opportunity to try elsewhere. It was 10 o clock at night by this point so felt a bit late to be eating (for us - not by Catalan standards) but we did our best to make the most of it. Just when we thought everyone must be stuffed, pudding arrived in the form of two special Sant Joan cakes, which are apparently only served once a year on this evening. They tasted a bit like Italian pannatone and were decorated with colourful candied fruit. The cake was washed down with a drink I didn't catch the name of, but which turned out to be ice-cream mixed with champagne. I was a bit suspicous of this originally but it turned out to be delicious

It was about 11.30 by the time we left and our friend walked us back part of the way until we knew where we were in the town centre. The celebrations were still in full swing here, with tables set out down some of the streets for street parties.

As it got towards midnight, a huge fireworks display started taking place near the beach.

The closer we got towards the beach the more chaos there seemed to be in the streets, with people setting off their own private fireworks in all directions.

Finally we caught sight of an enormous bonfire.

I think the dolls from earlier in the evening were going to be burned on this, but people had also been piling up old chairs and other furniture in the streams to fuel the flames.

It was very exciting to see and we were really grateful to our friend for inviting us to the party and trying to explain what the celebratoin was about; we wouldn't have had a clue what was happening otherwise!

The fireworks and partying in Mataró seemed to continue well into the early hours of the morning but we were exhausted by this stage so headed back to the hotel to recover.... and watch the Brexit results come in on the BBC World Service

Our plan for today was a day-trip to Barcelona. We have visited Barcelona before, for a long weekend in 2012, and so we knew that it isn't possible to see anything but a fraction of the city in just one day, but we thought it would be fun to revisit some of the sights that we enjoyed most last time we were there. It's an easy journey from Mataró on the suburban train and so our only challenge was finding some breakfast before we left. Breakfast in our hotel was too expensive (about €11) so we hadn't paid for it, thinking that it would be easy to get something to eat in one of the many cafes in the town. What we hadn't taken into consideration was that after the Sant Joan celebrations of the night before, Mataró was getting off to a relaxed start on Friday morning and as we walked along the main streets at 9am, almost all the cafes and restaurants were still closed! Eventually we did manage to find a little place that was open, and with some relief managed to get a coffee, croissant and cake to tide us over until lunchtime.

It was around 11am when we arrived in a baking hot Barcelona. Our first stop was the beautiful Plaça d'Espanya.

A wonderful series of fountains lead up from the main road to the beautiful building of the national museum of Catalan art, which is situated at the top of the hill.

My favourite fountain is this one. When we were in Barcelona before, one evening we witnessed an amazing display where the fountains were illuminated in different colours and the water danced in time with the music. This one was one of the prettiest.

The biggest fountain of all is like a huge waterfall which cascades down from the art gallery.

You can see just how big it is in comparison to me!

We reached the top of the hill and walked along a road for a while until we came to a viewpoint with a wonderful view back across Barcelona.

There were also some attractive gardens.

We climbed down the hill from here and were back in the centre of Barcelona.

In the distance we could just see the top of the Colombus monument.

We walked around the corner and found the sea...

...and then had a better view of the monument.

It was time for lunch by this point and so we spent a while walking around, trying not to get trapped by high tourist prices. We eventually found a place with a menu of the day for €12, which was a bit more expensive than what we had paid elsewhere but still seemed reasonable. The service wasn't quite as good as elsewhere either, but the food was delicious which made up for it

After lunch we had a few more sights we wanted to see before heading back to Mataró.

We saw the cathedral...

...and the imposing church of Santa Maria del Mar.

We had a stroll in the lovely Parc de la Ciutadella...

...before finding Barcelona's very own Arc de Triomf.

This was built in 1888 as an access gate for the Barcelona World Fair which took place in that year.

We'd had a lovely time in Barcelona but the heat was becoming really wearing, so we decided it was time to call it a day and head back to Mataró.

Tomorrow we will be saying goodbye to Spain and Catalonia as we cross the border into France for the second part of of our holiday

Yesterday was our last full day in Catalonia/Spain, with the aim of today being to cross the border into France en route to our next destination of Perpignan. Originally our plan had been to travel to Perpignan from Barcelona on a fast train, but unfortunately I had forgotten to buy the tickets soon after they came on sale and by the time I finally remembered, it would have been about €50 each to take the train. A bit of panicked Internet research later, we found that it was possible to get a bus to Perpignan from Girona for only €18, and the bonus was that we would get to spend a bit of time in Girona as well.

The first stage of the journey involved travelling on the local suburban train from Mataró to a place called Maçanet, a journey of about an hour. This was fine, but when we arrived in Maçanet at around 10am we were rather confused because we couldn't find any information about the connecting trains to Girona. There was no timetable on the wall, no loudspeaker announcements and no information on the display boards on each platform. We had partly had this problem in Mataró earlier in the morning, because they didn't announce which platform the train was leaving from until a minute or so before the train departed, which is probably fine if you get the train every day and know which platform it normally goes from, but not terribly helpful if you're a tourist and need to carry suitcases up and down staircases depending on the platform choice. We coped in Mataró, but in Maçanet we were rather bemused. Luckily it wasn't just us and several other tourists were wandering up and down the platforms, trying to find any sign which might indicate which one the train for Girona was due to depart from. Eventually one man who seemed to know more than everyone else authoritatively said that it was going to be platform 3, so we all settled down to wait. Happily he was right, and so when the train was announced a minute before its arrival, we didn't have a frantic rush to get to the right place. Within 20 minutes we were in Girona

The map of Girona in our Spanish guidebook wasn't very comprehensive so our main aim was to make our way into the town centre and find the tourist information office. Fortunately this turned out to be relatively easy, despite the fact that the station is about 20 minutes outside the main town, and we soon had a much better map, as well as some advice on the best things to see if we only had a couple of hours to spend in Girona.

One of the most striking sights in Girona are the colourful houses which line the banks of the river. We had seen pictures of these when researching Girona online, so one of the bridges across the river was our first stop.

The newer part of Girona is across the bridge, on the far side of the river. The man in the tourist information office had recommended that Plaça de la Independència would be a good place to get lunch.

After a quick look at the square, we crossed another bridge back across the river...

...and into the old town.

In the distance we could see the striking tower of the church of Sant Feliu.

We walked towards it to get a better view.

Nearby was Girona's cathedral, which had a rather daunting flight of stairs to climb to reach it.

There was a nice view once you made it to the top though.

Climbing a hill behind the cathedral, we found the entrance to the town walls. These were originally built in Roman times, being rebuilt and fortified during the sixteenth century.

There were quite a few steps to negotiate, but we soon had a great view of the back of the cathedral...

...and of the surrounding countryside as well.

At once place in the wall there was a spiral staircase which led up to a higher viewpoint.

We were really enjoying the scenery, but the heat was baking!

I think it would be nice to stay overnight in Girona and walk around the walls in the early morning/evening before it got too hot.

We had time to walk round most of the fortifications before heading back down into the old town and across the bridge into the new town in search of lunch. Girona seems like quite a popular place with tourists, and so the menus of the day we were seeing advertised were more expensive that what we had been paying elsewhere in Spain this week. We eventually settled on a place where I was able to have pizza and Tim ordered a Catalan sausage. We were initially just going to have these, with some wine, but after we ordered Tim noticed that this restaurant also offered a menu of the day for €16.95 and these dishes were part of it. We didn't want a starter at this point, but he went to speak to the waitress to see if we could switch our order to be the menu, with the result that we wouldn't have to pay extra for the wine

We enjoyed our main courses, followed them up with some chocolate icecream, and were expecting the bill might be around €40 in total, because we had also had a bottle of water and a beer. Imagine our surprise then when it arrived and was only €22! Tim spoke to the waitress and she explained that she had only charged us for one menu of the day at €16.95 (plus the beer and water) as we hadn't had starters, so had only had two dishes in total rather than four! So what was going to be our most expensive meal of the holiday actually turned out to be a bargain And it was a lovely location to eat in too.

Our time in Girona was drawing to an end and we made our way back towards the station for our bus to Perpignan, which was due to depart at 14.50. It arrived promptly and we got a seat without any problems. It was an interesting journey, as we passed through increasingly mountainous countryside on our way to the French border. I didn't expect there to be any checks once we got to the border, but our bus did get pulled over by the French police who had a cursory look at everyone's passports.

Within less than two hours we had arrived in Perpignan, and the aparthotel we are staying in very conveniently happened to be situated right opposite the bus station. We checked in and were rather confused, upon being asked whether we wanted Wi-Fi in our room, to be presented with a router and told to install it ourselves! Luckily Tim's was able to understand all the instructions in French

We went for a preliminary stroll around Perpignan this evening and it seems like it has a pleasant town centre, with lots of palm trees. We will be exploring in more detail tomorrow

We hadn't paid for breakfast in our hotel in Perpignan so we set out early this morning to find something to eat. We still didn't have a town plan, as the tourist information office had been closed by the time we got into the town centre last night, so we were pleased when we came across a map in the street. We consulted it for a few minutes to get our bearings... and guess which street we found we were standing just a few minutes away from?!

Of course, once we'd seen it on the map we had to try and find it in real life.

In this part of France the street signs are in French and in Catalan.

Eventually we found a nice cafe in one of the squares to have breakfast and then set about exploring Perpignan.

The first striking building which we caught a glimpse of was the Castillet, the old city gate.

It used to serve as a prison as well, but today houses a collection of Catalan art.

Not far away from the Castillet is the cathedral of Perpignan.

It has a clocktower with an unusual but pretty roof.

The main attraction in Perpignan is located a bit outside the town centre.

This is the Palace of the Kings of Majorca, which was built in Perpignan in the thirteenth century when the town was the capital of the Kingdom of Majorca.

It only cost €4 each to get in and there were some beautiful views from the walls.

There weren't many other tourists, so once we got inside we were able to wander around wherever we wanted.

The castle was quite bare inside, but interesting to see nevertheless. I didn't know before today that there had been a Kingdom of Majorca, much less that it had included Perpignan!

Back in the town centre, we found we had managed to see most of the sights.

We found a nice restaurant by the river to get some food.

Tim's burger came with a football-themed message

Perpignan hasn't been quite as exciting as Girona was yesterday, but it's been a good stopping off point on our journey between Spain and France. Tomorrow we are off to Toulouse, where we'll be spending most of the rest of our holiday.

This morning we left Perpignan behind to travel on to our next destination: Toulouse. First of all we had to take a train to Narbonne, which brought back some painful memories of the time we tried to walk from Narbonne to Narbonne Plage, not realising that they were 16km apart! The journey to Narbonne was actually quite pleasant, but when we changed there onto a faster train to Toulouse, it was so chaotic that we felt like we'd accidentally transferred to the Balkans instead. Having booked our tickets quite far in advance we had two seats reserved, but when we arrived at the right carriage we found our seats were already being occupied by someone else and her suitcase. She refused to move because she said that someone else was sitting in her reserved seat, so she suggested that instead we went to sit in someone else's seat. We reluctantly did that, but then the person who one of the seats belonged to turned up and he in turn went to sit in a different person's seat, so that by the end of the exercise I think almost everyone had a seat but no one was sitting in the right one!

It was just before 2pm when we arrived at the main station in Toulouse.

The aparthotel we were staying in was not far away and our booking confirmation said that we could check in at 2pm, so we headed straight there. The staff on reception weren't terribly efficient, but when they had eventually checked us in and we made our way up to the 8th floor where we were staying, we found that the cleaners were still working there and our room wasn't ready at all! Luckily they were very friendly and we just had to sit in reception for 15 minutes while they finished our room.

It was immaculate by the time we did get into it and after some brief unpacking we set out for a walk around Toulouse. Our apartment is in a good location and so it was only a brief stroll to the Capitole.

The town hall building is really beautiful...

...and this turretted building may win the prize for being the most impressive tourist information office ever!

We got a town plan from the tourist information and started to walk towards the cathedral, which Tim couldn't remember seeing from when he lived in Toulouse.

Having now seen it, it seems like it ought to be hard to miss - it's an enormous building!

The square around the catehdral is full of beautiful old buildings...

...and the cathedral has an attractive facade too.

Around the corner from the cathedral we found a large memorial for those who died in World War One.

This was the start of a series of parks which ran into each other.

The central park had some slightly disturbing statues...

...but also a very pretty fountain.

We could see that the town had put a lot of effort into preparing for the football championships.

We left the parks behind and wandered through the town some more until we came to the river Garonne.

It was just as pleasant here as we remembered.

The final stop on our tour of Toulouse was the basilica of St. Sernin.

This is a UNESCO world heritage site, being the largest remaining Romanesque building in Europe.

We'd walked 8 miles by this point so decided to call it a day and find somewhere to have dinner. We haven't been to Toulouse since 2010 which feels like a long time but it's lovely to be back and we're looking forward to some day trips to places in the surrounding area over the next few days

Our destination for today was the town of Auch, located about 80km to the west of Toulouse. This was a place we hadn't been to before but which looked beautiful in Google image searches when we were researching possible day trips from Toulouse. We took a train to L'Isle-Jourdain first of all and from there could get a connecting train to Auch. Fortunately French train stations have a much better level of information about incoming trains than Catalan ones seem to do, so we didn't experience the same problems as we did trying to change trains on the way to Girona last week, but we did find we had half an hour to wait for the next train, so we decided to have a quick stroll and see what there was to see in L'Isle-Jourdain.

It seemed to be a sleepy sort of place...

...although there was a nice square in the centre of the town.

We did spot one very impressive building, but we weren't sure whether it was part of a church or a castle.

We made it make to the station just on time for our onward train to Auch. As we walked out of the station we got our first glimpse of the town and the catehdral.

The main town of Auch is situated on a hill so we had quite a walk upwards from the train station.

As we climbed upwards into the town, we began to hear what sounded like loud and repeated banging on a drum. As we eventually came up alongside the cathedral the noise got louder and louder, until we turned a corner and found what appeared to be a group of communists protesting against some sort of cuts. Someone was indeed banging very loudly on a drum, while a group of policemen, some with noise-cancelling headphones, stood and watched. I guess today must have been some sort of strike day in France!

Protests aside, the entrance to the cathedral in Auch was very grand.

Behind the cathedral, the centre of the town was also very attractive.

We found the town hall...

...and some statues (though unfortunately it wasn't always clear who they were of!)...

...but wherever you go in the town, you could see the cathedral towering above everything.

It was here...

...and here...

...and here too

After walking around for a while, we started looking for a place to have lunch. Eventually we found a restaurant which went by the not very inspiring name of Brassierie le parking but which had a promising-looking menu of the day. For starters I had ham, which turned out to be of a slightly uncooked variety and so Tim had to help me finish, then steak and chips for the main course. The waitress was very friendly, and after Tim had been talking to her in French for a while, she asked where he was from and whether he was Belgian, as she couldn't quite place his accent

After lunch we decided to climb back down the hill and go for a walk along the river. The waitress in the restaurant had recommended that we walk down the steps in front of the cathedral, where we would find a statue of d'Artagnan.

We walked around the cathedral, from where we had a wonderful view of the surrounding countryside.

From this side, the cathedral looks a bit more like a castle.

We found the steps that lead down from the catehdral to the river, and partway down them we came across the statue of d'Artagnan.

The further down we climbed, the better a perspective we had on how big the cathedral was.

The best view was from the far side of the river.

There was a pretty path by the side of the river which we were able to follow for some time.

Though however far we walked, the cathedral still dominated the skyline.

Soon it was time to head back to the station for our return journey to Toulouse. Auch was a really pretty destination and we had a lovely day there.

Our destination for today was Foix, a town about 50 miles south of Toulouse in the direction of the Pyrenees. We had been there in 2010 but felt like we hadn't been able to enjoy it properly, as it was the day after our ill-fated walk from Narbonne to Narbonne Plage and our legs had been rather tired. I was excited to be revisiting it today, but when I opened the curtains this morning I started doubting whether we should go, because we were confronted with a rather unusual sight for this part of the world: a cloudy sky! The weather forecast suggested that it might start raining in Foix in the afternoon, but with the train we were planning to catch we knew we could be there by 11am, so we decided to risk it anyway and see how much of the town we could see before any bad weather set in.

We had a pleasant journey on a regional train, with the landscape becoming increasingly hilly the closer we got to Foix. When we got off the train and started to walk towards the main town, it was a bit cloudy but still dry at least.

We got our first glimpse of the castle which towers above the town.

Foix is the confluence of two rivers, the Arget and Ariège, which ultimately flow into the Garonne, the large river which flows through Toulouse.

The bridge across the main river was decked out with colourful Catalan flags.

We knew the walk up to the castle would be steep, so we had a stroll around the town to stretch our legs a bit first of all.

Every now and again we got glimpses of the castle.

And sometimes great views of it like this one.

Eventually we decided to start our ascent up to the castle rock. The steep path is made even more tiring by the cobblestones, which mean you really have to watch where you put your feet.

As we climbed upwards we started to have a good view of the countryside around Foix.

And of course, a good view of the castle up close.

It was a bit hazy, but you could still make out some of the mountains in the distance.

It cost €5.50 each to get into the castle, but for that you can climb up two of the towers...

...and walk around the grounds on the top of the castle hill.

The first tower we climbed was the one with the crenellated roof.

There were a lot of steps and we had to pause at times to wait for a party of French schoolchildren to pass us, but the view was worth it when we got to the top.

We could also see the second tower we were going to climb; this circular one.

There were a lot of steps to negotiate on this one as well, but eventually we made it to the top

The views were equally impressive from here.

There was a great view of the rest of the castle as well.

It seemed like the weather was improving slightly as well, which was a bonus.

It was 1pm by this point so we decided we'd better start the climb back down to Foix to get some lunch.

When we got to the foot of the castle hill, we found this large church, which we learned was the abbey of Saint-Volusien.

We found a nice place to sit outside and it remained dry while we ate, though it did cloud over a bit during the course of the meal. As we went for another walk around the town after lunch, we could get some perspective on just how high we'd climbed to get to the castle.

Soon it was time to walk back towards the station for our train back to Toulouse.

There was just time for one more shot of the castle before we left

We had a lovely day in Foix and were glad we weren't put off by the threat of rain which never materialised! Tomorrow we will hopefully be going on a trip to Albi, another beautiful town which we also visited in 2010.

We made an early start this morning, catching a 9.15 train in the direction of Albi. We had a second destination that we wanted to visit today though, so rather than staying on the train all the way to Albi we first of all got off at the small town of Gaillac, about an hour away from Toulouse. Gaillac is famous in the region for producing a type of wine which bears the same name, some of which we had drunk earlier in the week, but from pictures we had seen online it also looked like a town with an interesting historical centre.

When we got off the train in Gaillac it didn't take us long to walk to the pretty main square.

There was a war memorial with lots of flags...

...and a building which looked grand enough to be the town hall, but actually turned out just to be a savings bank!

Moving away from the main square, we made our way along the first of many beautiful medieval-looking streets.

We found another square where the buildings also gave the impression of being very old.

Gaillac is situated on the river Tarn, and right on the banks of the river is the abbey of St Michel.

The abbey was originally constructed in the 10th century and in some places its walls almost look like those of a castle.

There were some more ancient-looking streets which led up from behind the abbey.

We strolled along them for a while and eventually found ourselves in Park Foucaud.

There were some lovely formal gardens, set out around a seventeenth century castle which now houses a museum.

Once we had had a stroll around the park, we set off back towards the station for our train to Albi.

Albi is only another 20 minutes or so on the train from Gaillac, so we were there by midday. As the train pulled into the station, we got our first glimpse of the town's enormous cathedral.

We didn't have to worry about road signs or maps towards the town centre as we left the station; we just walked straight towards the cathedral!

The closer we got to the cathedral the more enormous it appeared...

...until we got right up beside it and could see how huge it really was.

Next to the cathedral is another castle-like building, formerly the bishop's palace, which is now home to an art musuem.

Some of the turrets on this building reminded us of the towers in the old walls of Tallinn.

We walked through the beautiful old streets of Albi, towards the river.

Like Gaillac, Albi is also situated on the river Tarn.

We climbed down to the river for a view across to some more buildings in the old town.

Several bridges cross the river here. The most famous is the Pont Vieux, which was originally built in stone in the eleventh century, then later clad with brick.

We climbed back up to walk across a newer bridge, from where we knew we would have a brilliant view back towards the cathedral.

We weren't disappointed

After admiring the cathedral for a while, we set off back into the town to find a nice brasserie for a late lunch.

Before we had to set off for our train back to Toulouse in the afternoon, there was just time for another walk through the streets of Albi...

..and one last shot of the cathedral

We had a great day in Gaillac and Albi, and a great time in Toulouse overall. Tomorrow we will be moving on to Carcassonne for the final leg of our holiday.

We had a relaxed morning in Toulouse today, not wanting to arrive in Carcassonne too early to be able to check into our accommodation. Tim did some shopping for books, picking up some learning materials for the local language Occitan, and we had lunch at a Bavarian restaurant which we had been to a couple of times in 2010. I had a delicious Flammkuche, while Tim had a goulash which he says was almost as good as our favourite goulash in Trieste

We caught a train to Carcassonne in the early afternoon and arrived at the station there just after 15.30. I had received a text message earlier in the day from the lady whose apartment we were renting, asking for our arrival time. When we replied she said that she would pick us up from the station, which was an unexpected bonus. Sure enough, there she was as we made our way towards the station exit, holding a sign with my name on it. Amid a torrent of French, she packed us up into her car and drove us through the newer part of Carcassonne to a large car park on the outskirts of fortified old town. At this point I was expecting we would get out and walk with our suitcases to the apartment, but much to my astonishment there was a second lady with an electric buggy waiting for us in the carpark. It was a bit like the vehicles the National Trust use to transport people with reduced mobility to and from properties, except it had a large space at the back where we could put our suitcases. We all transferred to the buggy and the lady proceeded to drive us at a remarkable speed, down a main road then through a gate in the city walls. We bumped and bounced over the cobbled streets and nearly took out several slow-moving pedestrians, before finally arriving at the apartment in one piece. I think this has to win the prize for the most surreal experience of the holiday!

The apartment itself is small but comfortable and in an amazing location within the fortified walls of the old town. This is the view from one of our windows, from where we can just make out the tops of some of the towers that surround the town.

We settled in and then set out for a stroll around Carcassonne. Our landlady had told us that you could now walk around some of the ramparts within the the main chateau in the heart of the city, so we decided to prioritise doing that before the doors closed for the evening. Luckily we didn't have far to go - the entrance to the chateau was just a few hundred metres from our front door

It cost €8 each to get in which seemed quite expensive, but Carcassonne is a very popular place with tourists. It's not difficult to see why.

Inside the chateau we listened to part of an audiovisual display about the history of Carcassonne in French, before following signs to begin our walk around the ramparts.

Unfortunately at this point the very hot weather gave way to a bit of a storm and we had to shelter in one of the towers until the rain had passed.

In between the showers we had some fantastic views though.

The chateau ramparts were shorter than we expected, and soon we were inside the building itself.

The rooms of the chateau were full of historical artefacts, but we didn't spend too much time looking at them because we were keen to get outside again.

It was time to explore some of the pretty streets in the old town.

We soon saw a sign to a viewpoint, which led us slightly downhill and out of a gate in the city walls.

From here we had a view towards the modern part of Carcassonne and the surrounding countryside.

Best of all, we were able to walk around the outskirts of some of the walls.

The reason that Carcassonne is such a fortified town is that it used to be in a strategic location on the border between France and Spain. The borders moved in 1659 as a result of the Treaty of the Pyrenees, which transferred the region of Roussillon to France. All of a sudden Carcassonne was no longer in a key location, and in the nineteenth century there was even talk of demolishing the fortifications.

Fortunately this didn't happen, and an architect called Viollet-le-Duc began a project to restore and renovate the fortifications in 1853.

It's amazing to think that if he hadn't, this might not be here today for us to admire.

After exploring the ramparts for a while, we came back into the main town. There's some really interesting architecture here as well.

This is the basilica of St Nazaire in the centre of the town.

Although there were still some tourists around, it was nice to be able to stroll around a relatively empty Carcassonne as the evening drew on.

We're hoping to make an early start tomorrow morning to enjoy the town some more before the hordes of other visitors arrive.

I set my alarm for 7am this morning so that we could make an early start. Our aim was to have an early morning stroll around the walled city of Carcassonne before the hordes of tourists descended on it. It wasn't a very sunny morning when we opened the curtains and it felt like a bit of a struggle to get out of bed, but it was worth it to have the town almost to ourselves

We started by walking around the centre of town.

There really was hardly another soul in sight.

And even though there wasn't a blue sky, this view of the chateau and the basilica was still beautiful.

After strolling round the town for a while, we passed through a gate and began to walk around between the inner and outer walls.

This gave us some fantastic views of the turreted towers...

...and there was still hardly anyone else in sight

Eventually we passed through the main gate in the outer wall...

...and began to leave the old city behind us...

as we started our descent into the lower town.

The more modern part of Carcassonne is actually very pretty too, although I suspect it often gets overshadowed by the walled town.

As we walked further into the town, we kept looking over our shoulders for a view of the fortifications behind us.

The further we walked, the better that view got.

The best view of all was probably the one from the middle of the old bridge.

Once over the old bridge, we were in the centre of the new town.

We found a brasserie serving breakfast near the train station, then bought tickets for the 10.32 train to Béziers.

The journey from Carcassonne only takes 45 minutes, but our tickets entitled us to seats in carriage 6. Tim had seat 84 and I had seat 87, so unfortunately we weren't going to be next to each other, but we expected we would still be sitting pretty close. We boarded the train at the correct carriage and Tim instantly found seat 87 for me. Excellent. He walked a couple of steps further down the train to find seat 84, but was soon turning around in confusion and coming back to where he had started. Inexplicably, there was a gap in the seats between 77 and 85, so that the numbering on the electronic displays jumped straight from 75 - 76 to 86 - 87. Much to our dismay, seat 84 simply didn't exist! We weren't the only ones to be annoyed; Tim soon encountered another man who had been sold seat 94... but 87 was the final seat in the carriage!

It all ended happily in the end, because the other man walked further down the train and found another carriage with spaces in it, then came back to let us know But it didn't do much to improve our impression of the efficiency of French trains; it all seemed very reminiscent of the time we got sold a reservation for seats 33 and 34 on a bus to Budva that only had 27 seats.

Anyway, the good news was that when we stepped off the train in Béziers, the weather had improved and we were treated to a beautiful blue sky once more.

Béziers is one of the oldest towns in France, with evidence of settlements dating back to the fifth century BC. We wanted to visit because we had seen some beautiful pictures online of the town's cathedral, towering above a river. We were impressed already when we walked straight out of the train station and into a landscaped park.

At the entrance to the park was an enormous war memorial, surrounded by French flags.

The path through the park led steeply uphill and we soon caught sight of this unusual monument in the distance.

Eventually we climbed up beside it and had a wonderful view of the surrounding countryside.

We were now in the centre of the town and first impressions were promising.

I particularly loved these colourful displays of umbrellas which were hanging in some of the streets.

There was a tourist information office in the main square, from where we were able to get a map of the town and plan what we wanted to see.

The main attraction was definitely going to be the cathedral.

The cathedral is perched on the edge of a steep hill and so from the square outside it we were able to see for miles.

The hill overlooks the river Orb, and our next goal was to climb down and find the town's old bridge, from where we should be able to get the views back up towards the town that we had already been admiring on the Internet. It looked a long way down though!

We set off through the streets once more, following signs for the bridge.

Eventually we got down to river level...

...and managed to see the picture postcard view of Béziers for ourselves

It was a view definitely worth climbing down for.

Having walked across a newer bridge to start with, we then went back across the river on the old bridge...

...and began our ascent back up to the main town.

We were fairly tired by the time we got back to the top of the hill, so found a nice restaurant where we could sit outside and have some lunch.

There was plenty more to see in Béziers in the afternoon.

We even managed to find a market under the trees, where Tim was able to stock up on some French books.

When it was time to return to the station, we walked through the park once more...

...and even found a friendly local cat.

We thought our train back to Carcassonne was supposed to be at 15.40, but when we got to the station it was a bit unclear so Tim went to the information desk to double-check. The man behind the desk confirmed that the train was indeed at 15.40, although for some reason that train hadn't been showing as an option on the electronic ticket machine we'd consulted. Just to make 100% sure, Tim clarified that that was the 15.40 train to Perpignan and the man agreed, so we set off to catch the train.

It was a pleasant journey and we expected it would take around 45 minutes again. After about half an hour though, I looked up from my book and was a bit surprised to see this out of the window.

Although Béziers itself is only a few miles from the coast, Carcassonne is firmly inland and there's no reason at all why a train from Béziers to Carcassonne ought to be driving past scenery which looks like this.

The view from the train window between Béziers and Carcassonne ought to look more like this.

I was hit by a horrible feeling that this train was going to Perpignan via a route which wasn't taking it anywhere near Carcassonne at all. When we consulted the display board with the list of upcoming stations, we realised this was indeed the case. Oh dear.

Around 5pm we arrived in Perpignan. While we did enjoy our time in Perpignan last week, we hadn't expected to be back there quite so soon. Having consulted a map of the regional train lines, we now realised that we should have got off the train at the first stop of Narbonne in order to get a connecting train to Carcassonne, but the man at the information desk in Beziers hadn't made any reference to us needing to change trains, which was very frustrating.

There was a train back in the direction of Béziers leaving at 17.15. We decided to chance getting on it without buying new tickets as far as Narbonne. We didn't feel like this misunderstanding was our fault and the regional trains don't always have a conductor checking the tickets anyway... although once the train started moving we quickly realised that this one did! Luckily for us he was very reasonable and when Tim explained to him what had happened, he seemed to take pity on us and didn't try to fine us for not having the right tickets. Phew

Once in Narbonne, we had just four minutes to make our connection to Carcassonne but we managed it, and luckily this train turned out to have a very understanding conductor too, who didn't complain that our tickets had been validated several hours ago and even apologised for the poor quality of information we'd received in Béziers.

By 7pm we were back in Carcassonne and walking back to the walled city for the last time. We've had an amazing holiday for the past two weeks, and I think being able to stay here has been the icing on the cake

Today was the final day of our holiday. We had arranged with our landlady that she would collect our keys at 11:30 and then drive us into town to save us the journey with our cases. That gave us time for a leisurely stroll around Carcassonne again in the morning.

It proved to be delightful! There were no people around, which meant we got those normally busy restaurant areas and crowded narrow streets entirely to ourselves:

The bridge leading to the chateau looked beautiful in the light:

As did the countryside, which opened up to us as we headed out the Porte d'Aude:

The archways provided a beautiful frame:

And soon we were walking downhill towards the Porte Narbonnaise:

Looking back at where we'd just walked from presented us with a lovely sight too:

And soon we were approaching the lap, heading back towards the Porte d'Aude:

We were conscious of running out of time and knew that we would have to go into the town to find breakfast. That meant a walk downhill and across a bridge. It's normally only in fairy tales that you get the backdrop that we had on the Pont Vieux:

Breakfast proved elusive and we really had to penetrate deeply into the town until we found somewhere open. Breakfast was a simple affair; the breakfast option for Clare (an orange juice (to be drunk by me), a coffee, and a croissant), and a baguette for me. Paying for breakfast proved tricky, though. The man working there was a hard worker but a little slow on the uptake. I handed him 10€ to cover the cost (6€ for Clare, 3.50€ for me) only for him to try counting the items up individually. Unbelievably he came out with a smaller number than it should've been, even though you would expect the meal option to be cheaper than buying everything separately should be. I pointed this out to him so he said he would speak to the boss. Then he came back with a totally different figure, which I had to amend by pointing out that the orange juice wasn't a separate item but part of Clare's breakfast option. "It's six euros for her breakfast, plus three and a half for my baguette. 9.50€." Off to the boss he went, then he came back with a massive number, saying the the baguette I'd eaten wasn't part of the breakfast option, so it was going to cost more. "I know! There's one breakfast option. One! Hers! Mine isn't a breakfast option. It's just a baguette!" Then he started trying to count again and I had to help him. Eventually he hit the magic number 9.50€, and we were able to head back, a little behind schedule.

Still, a destination is always nearer when you know where you're going and before long we were walking back across the Pont Vieux and through the narrow streets. We knew we were getting very close when the end of the street looked like this:

We were back in time to shower and pack. As 11:30 arrived we said goodbye to our appartment with a shot of the view from the window:

And then we descended the stairs to wait for a landlady and say goodbye to the medieval town. And then something wonderful happened: The lady had taken a liking to us and so, instead of dropping us into town and leaving us with "nothing to do", she arranged with the shopkeeper next door to look after our cases, giving us the option of catching the shuttle to the airport from the car park instead. And just like that we ended up with a bonus four hours there!

And then we found a lovely little restaurant outside of which to eat:

And we helped ourselves to several pichets of wine there:

And that was the end of a lovely holiday, which was very, very relaxing. Although time didn't seem to lag, we kept catching ourselves by surprise by saying that "X was only a week ago" at different stages in it! I had the bonus of seeing some old friends, some of whom I hadn't seen in fourteen years, and Clare got to meet a Russian friend of hers who by coincidence had a few days in Toulouse which coincided with hers. We'll definitely be coming back and, as I said to my friends, won't be leaving it fourteen years this time!