GPS Follies

August 5, 2015

     I leave Prades (or Prada as it's known in Catalan) around 9:00 a.m.  I set the GPS to use toll roads, thinking it will take me to Perpignan, where I'll pick up the peage to Carassonne and home.

      At one point, the GPS directs me onto a local road rather than the one direction Perpignan, but I trust in its wisdom.

      That was a mistake.   I should have followed my instincts, as the GPS takes me through a part of the Pyrenees and the Languedoc forest, rather than Perpignan and the Narbonne road.  The first part of the trip involves negotiating hairpin turns high in Pyrenees Orientales into l'Aude via the most direct route: through the mountain villages.  I am going through tiny village after tiny village with no sense of where I am.  Worse, the GPS sends me through streets so narrow I "ding" the car trying to negotiate them.  Fortunately, locals show me a better way, but I definitely do not want to do this again.

       For the last part of the trip, the GPS takes me through the Corbieres, lower lying mountains, dry and known for producing a tannic wine.  It is a relief to be on lower ground, still more of a relief when the gentle hillsides of the Minervois come into view.  The most ordinary of Minervois villages look like beauty spots compared to the stark and austere villages of the Pyrenees.

       I am exhausted, but glad to be home, glad to be in Caunes.