Lady Marmalade and La Petite Maison

Last week we had one of the highlights of our trip staying at a Bed & Breakfast outside of Carcassone, in the Languedoc Roussilion wine region of southern France.
We started out staying in a fantastic room overlooking the pool and garden in Martine and Thierry's old stone house built in the 1500s - with massive oak beams, winding staircases, ivy covered walls, and authentic French shabby chic, mixed with real antiques. For breakfast, we feasted on fresh bread and croissants, slathered with Martine's homemade apricot and fig marmalade. Then the second day,

we discovered that they had a little stone house with a kitchen tucked away in the garden, so we moved in there and were in seventh heaven for 5 days! I told Martine I was very happy with La Petite Maison ( the little house) but I missed her magnificent breakfast. So she gave us a jar of her apricot jam to help us over the separation anxiety and install us into our maison properly. Perfect!!
Every day, it was like waking up in a Town & Country magazine shoot, only without the posturing photographer and stylist dressed in black : ) We had french windows opening out into the garden and the shaggy horse next door, with rusted old french metal garden furniture, lavender in the flowerbeds, the works! We nested, cooked, ate cheese (a common french paatime you may have heard us mention before), drank wine, and picked blackberries on the way to the shop down the road - see, blackberries aren't just for checking your email!

We also hired an impossibly small, unairconditioned car (remember rolling down the windows??) to tour the gorgeous surrounding countryside for 2 days. Imagine fields of swaying sunflowers alternated with craggy hillside castles, and miles and miles of vivid green grapevines. Towns were straight out of postcards, with tree shaded cobblestone lanes, ancient stone houses and peeling wooden shutters, bridges loaded with flower boxes, and gnarled women shaking rugs over tiny wrought iron balconies.
When it was time to go, we were very sad to leave our petit maison and took about a million photos. Here is a smattering to give you a taste.
Now we are in Collioure for a week, a seaside town on the coast just above Spain. But that's another chapter. Stay tuned (yes, there will be more cheese - of both the literal and the metaphorical variety).