The yellow train (Friday 19th July 2013)

Up early for the long drive to Villefranche des Conflent in the foothills of the Pyrenees. The drive took about two hours, we expected three. That included the direction from the manic GPS girl. The area just outside Perpignan is round-about city – as is the whole of France, BTW. The poor girl just got confused and I'm sure she sent me around every round-about in the vicinity. My navigator was asleep as was Kerry so I was left on my own to swear and cus at the GPS girl, which didn't help the situation other than making me feel better. Anyway, we made it to our destination without incident by 9:30.

Villefranche des Conflent is a walled village on the River Tet, set against a backdrop of close, high, craggy peaks. Its laneways are cobblestoned and narrow and essentially tourist oriented. We poked about in the lanes for a couple of hours killing time until 1:15pm when the object of our visit to the town, a train journey up the Tet valley to the higher Pyrenees, was due to depart. The girls had some more success in the shops and I almost bought a second hand John Cougar CD for 3 euros.

At 1:00pm we wandered over to the station and boarded the Petit Train Jeune. The train consisted of about seven carriages and a diesel engine. Two of the carriages are open-topped so, as it was a warm and sunny day, we hopped on one of those. The train pulled out on its two hour journey to Font Romeu – a skiing and ice skating village. Soon it was trundling up the river valley – it certainly wasn't speeding up! The scenery was nice to start off with as we passed high by little villages here and there. The rocky mountains became larger and the houses that had been built in the most improbable places became more and more improbable. Why one would build a house that clings to a mountain-side 100m above the valley floor is beyond me.

The train wound its way up the mountains across high, arched bridges and through numerous tunnels some short, some almost 400 metres long. All the kids, and most of the adults, on the train screamed when we entered each tunnel, which was fun! We made a few stops as we climbed the mountains as the train serves as normal public transport, but most passengers are tourists or hikers seeking a place to start their walk. After an hour the warm, sunny day disappeared, the mountain clouds rolled and with that came the rain. But never fear, the Smiths were prepared. We donned our rain-jackets and MCG-like ponchos and stayed put. Everyone else headed for the normal carraiges. The weather cleared and the view to the high Pyrenees became spectacular. The many, many photos taken do no justice to how it really looked. We reached our destination and started walking to the village. Our trusty Android GPS app told us it was still 3kms away (all uphill) so we about-faced and went back to the station for the next train down. The journey back took a further two hours and provided a different perspective.

The GPS girl got confused again near Perpignan but we managed to find out way back to the road to Narbonne. This time my navigator was awake! We stopped at a small village called Portel des Corbieres for a pizza. Very nice it was too. The owner was a very friendly chap who shouted Emily and me a Sangria to go with our meal. By now it was about 9:30pm and dusk was approaching. I found a Jean Michel Jarre record on my phone which we played, windows down in the cool evening air, all the way back to Talairan.