Brenas - South of France

I spent Easter in a tiny village in the south of France, Brenas, where there was a lot of eating, walking and sleeping. The village was very very very tiny and there is slight tension between the locals and any ex-pats (ex-pats being anyone who comes from outside of the village).

The house had a bottom storage area and then two floors. We stayed in the room at the back of the house and right outside the window were all the chickens kept in the back yard. They were very scared when we would open the window and make sneaky dashes to the far end of the yard.

The view from the terrace however was fantastic and off in the distance you could see the ruins of an old castle or fort.

The town as I said was very very small and all the houses were connected almost the entire length of the village. There were Wisteria in bloom hanging on the homes (although apparently you must keep it off the houses or it will pull the stones out from the walls) and there were bees.

At the end of the village was the church (no store in town but a church), but it was unused except for the parking lot. There wasn't enough room to turn a car around, you had to drive to the end of the village and turn in the parking lot. Good thing there wasn't much town you had to drive through.

We had a brief chat with one of the locals who showed us her rabbits, one who had just given birth. Perfect timing for Easter.

We walked up the path, accompanied by two dogs who wanting nothing except to chase a stick the entire way up and we stopped in a field with a view of the landscape.

It wasn't that warm for being in the South of France although the landscape was very dry. The house had a wood stove which was something I'd never seen before. You could build the fire on top of the metal grate and have an open fire in the house and hang pots etc over the fire for cooking.

Then you could tilt the metal base with the arm and dump the fire into the box below. There it would warm the house and there was a fan in the box to blow the heat around (with much less smoke).

While the weather was nice we went for a walk up to the ruins of the castle. It was a nice walk through the farmland along small roads that crossed the landscape.

The landscape was red with crumbling rock and very unique.

On Saturday we drove to a near village to go shopping at the market. There were lots of people (and we had to watch our wallets). After the market we did what is apparently the local thing to do - meet everyone in town on the terrace for a drink.

On Sunday we went for a hike in the region. As with everything, you had to get there by car, just like in the suburbs you couldn't even buy food without a car (although the scenery was much more picturesque). Anyway, the town was by the lake and we continued on foot to the mountain above it.

Once we reached the top we had a fantastic view of the lake and the surrounding hills.

It was very very pretty country and the hike was beautiful. Also during the weekend we had a great dinner party and I played my fiddle for people. Lots of great food for the weekend. However, the 12 hour journey to Davos was less than wonderful!