Stage 5: Foix to La Tour de Carol

Perhaps surprisingly, given that we might fairly expect that the area we would be travelling through would be the least 'modern' of our trip, this turned out to be the easiest stage of the tour to date.

After spending an hour or two in Foix itself - including a raid for picnic fodder at a small supermarket - we headed for the station, concerned a little to make sure that we could get our bags into decent spaces and find ourselves the best seats possible, since this was to be a two-hour jaunt.

We had no such worries - although the French do seem to like taking as much space as possible on a train, and we had to settle for a pair of seats facing the way we'd come.

Within a few minutes, as we started a noticeable climb out of Foix, I was in danger of getting a crick in my neck. So we were quite relieved, just two short stops later, when enough people departed to leave us a pick of seats, with a big window and the chance to sit back and appreciate the scenery more fully.

And it was worth appreciating, as we moved higher and higher. The architecture was fascinating: a combination of the Alpine and the brightly coloured walls and shutters of Pays Catalan.

We ran alongside the still fast-flowing Ariege, moving nearer and nearer to it's source, marvelling at how clear it looked, musing on how it would be to scoop up a handful and drink.

More gravel industry was visible, together with what seemed to be regular power stations by the running water.

There was a semi-constant sense of 'ohhh' and 'ahhh' as we rounded bends to see spectacular new panoramas laid out before us. The heavily wooded mountains eventually showed signs of a tree line, but the charming upland meadow alongside the tracks remained.

Out of the corner of your eye, you'd glance butterflies fluttering away, while beehives lay dotted around; sometimes singly, sometimes in large groups.

The trip took us within a stone's throw of Andorra and left us, a short while later, at La Tour de Carol, a vast but almost deserted station that is effectively a border halt for France and Spain.

But with Schengen rendering passport checks between the countries a thing of the past, it is a very quiet place that has seen better days.

The platforms were low though, so as had no trouble getting out of the train, and even had the novel experience of having to walk across the tracks to the station building itself.

With mountains all around and the odd, lazy lizard sunning itself, there was something sleepy about the place, as vast old sheds and buildings decayed slowly in the languid atmosphere. 

Le Train Jaune, which travels by narrow gauge to Villefranche, pulled in soon after. But like everything about this part of the journey, it was going nowhere fast.

The solitary station shop was shut until the early evening and no sign existed of food and drink. We were glad for the little picnic.

We had a break of 90 minutes between trains. For me, a wander around the old station with the camera, unobstructed, had its fascinations, and that was followed by time spent writing, iPad propped up on my case.

And so, with a few other travellers and a couple of dogs, we waited.

Foix, and all that jazz

Arriving in Foix provided an instant hit of pleasure on seeing in real life the vast chateau towering over the town that we'd seen so so many times in pictures since we started planning this trip.

It rises out of a vast plug of rock, with it's three towers (none original) standing like short, irregular cricket stumps with no bails.

After dropping off our bags at the former coaching inn where were we staying, right on the side of the Ariege, we headed straight into the town itself, through a tiny square with half-timbered buildings and a delightfully decrepit (but still working) fountain.

The streets are narrow and utterly irregular. This really is a medieval city that grew up around the castle's foot.

There was no way, though, that we were going to attempt it that day.

Instead, we found a delightful, old bar - Auberge Miranda - and sat to relax with Leffe blondes, a Belgian white beer that seems enormously popular in the area and is indeed very refreshing.

A further wander and a further beer at another bar, Henri IV, filled our afternoon entirely pleasantly and we headed back to the hotel to freshen up.

The hotel has a restaurant - as do many hotels, of course - but this one has a terrace that overlooks the river; heavy wrought iron, with red geraniums everywhere. The restaurant, according to a guidebook, also has a decent reputation for it's food. So we had decided to to dine there.

The setting is delightful and was worth it. The food was over rated. Okay, it wasn't dismal, but it had pretensions beyond it's capabilities.

They make nods to silver service, but it really isn't up to that.

However, seeking to further explore regional food, I had a gizzards salad, which was vast, but also a tad dry, followed by local wild trout, a treat I'd been dreaming of for some time, but which was also a bit dry, and over swamped in the almonds I'd assumed would be less a retro touch and more something quite  authentic for the area.

The next day, were pared ourselves for the climb - and surprised ourselves by finding it easier than expected, much helped by taking it very slowly.

Wandering around the castle, which had been the home of the counts of Foix from around 1000, when it is first documented, was a pleasure.

At one point, The Other Half spotted a huge bird gliding around not far from us. We caught a flash of brown on it's belly, but the clearest way to identify it was by the tail fathers, which form a sort of fan shape. It was a Lammergeier, or the bearded vulture - the rarest vulture in Europe. And what a magnificent figure it cut!

After lunching at Henry IV (where I had a very pleasant four cheese pizza) we ambled some more and then opted for a rest back at the hotel.

Later, we sat outside the first bar we'd find with another beer, listening to a delightful Old Orleans quintet playing in the street, which seemed to be a key fixture in the town's jazz festival.

We'd briefly heard them the previous evening, when they burst into the title song from Hello Dolly, which had me singing straight away - and then again later in the shower.

After this aperitif, we dined at a small restaurant that we'd spotted called Le Jeu de l'Oie.

In my case, that started with six - yes, SIX!! - slices of local foie gras and toast; and boy, it was very, very good; followed by sautéed rabbit in a sauce based on hypocras, a sugar-sweetened wine, and accompanied by duck fat-fried chips. It was super - the best rabbit I've had, and the sauce was lovely too, and the chips were hardly slouches.

I finished with a coffee gourmand, as I revelled in the novelty of drinking coffee after a meal without it upsetting my stomach: the key is simply to let it cool.

And with that, it was time to waddle back to the hotel and get some well-earned kip before the next stage in our little tour.

Onwards and upwards

Stage four of the tour de France saw us leave Carcassonne in far easier and more relaxed style than that in which we'd arrived.

In other words, after a brief wander around in vastly improved weather, we actually got a cab from the hotel to the station - a move that made the distance between not only seem much shorter, but also seemed to reveal the part of the town we'd traipsed through on Monday evening as being far pleasanter than we recalled.

Knowing that we'd have to get across platforms without any lifts or escalators, but having time on our side, made that job easier too.

And then, as indicated by that very nifty little French device of an on-platform computer display of a train, showing you where to go on the platform for your particular carriage, we moved into sunshine and sat down to wait for the train back to Toulouse.

The train itself was 10 minutes late, but it's amazing how mellow you can stay when you're lapping up the sunshine.

And once we'd pulled out of Carcassonne, the driver made up that lost time, getting us there in a mere 40 minutes.

At Toulouse, we again hauled the bags between platforms without any modern aids, but again without it being quite so infuriating or stressful.

Then it was onto a small, local train for the chug into the Pyrenees, stopping at a dozen stations on the way.

The bulk of the journey seemed flat, being across a plain. Which was frustrating. Where were the mountains? We were supposed to be heading into the mountains, so where were they?

We'd passed plenty of farm land; some with sunflowers, but less than previously, and intermittent industry - a lot of which seemed to do with gravel. Leaving Pamiers behind, we had less than 10 minutes scheduled journey time left, but still seemed only to have barely arrived at the very edge of hillier country.

And yet within five minutes, as we pulled into our penultimate stop, we were surrounded by hills.

And five minutes beyond that, those hills were soaring above us.

There was a big exodus from the train at Foix. At least being such a small station, there were no mass of platforms to navigate. We walked off the train, straight through the ticket hall and out into a different world.

There was even a taxi waiting, which took us the almost embarrassingly short hop to our hotel, which backed right onto the Aude, with it's entrance in a tiny square that included more than one half-timbered building.

And you didn't have to move far to see at least one of the towers of the chateau rising high above the town.

With almost ridiculous ease after the trials of the previous stages, we had arrived at the heart of the Ariege.

The holiday count down begins

You could be forgiven for assuming that, with conference safely in the history books, life would return to whatever passes for normal. But that is not the case.

The production timetable is set out in such a way that we have only the week immediately after to get pretty much an entire journal out. Now this makes complete sense – it’s the issue with all the conference reports in, so members need it as soon as possible. But it’s still a busy week.

It was at this stage, four years ago, that I first realised how bone tired I am by now. We hadn’t booked a holiday, but had been thinking of taking a week in Barcelona.

I said to The Other Half: ‘I can’t do it. If I do a city break, I’ll run around with the camera like a total lunatic, wanting to do as much as possible. I need to sit still and do nothing’.

We were incredibly lucky, so late in the season, to get into a hotel in Collioure for 10 days. We’d visited before, but never stayed there.

It was the first time I’d ever had a real beach holiday. I took something like nine books, because I didn’t really think I could just still for all that time, doing nothing. It didn’t take long to discover just how wrong I was.

We will be back on the same beach in a few weeks, after a week making our way there on trains, via Bordeaux, Carcassonne, Foix and Villefranche de Conflent.

My food aims are already taking shape – well, food and drink, since we’re starting in Bordeaux!

It’s totally perverse, of course, to eat cassoulet in the summer, but one has to make sacrifices sometimes, and in a region that prides itself on that dish, I’ll find somewhere to give the real thing a whirl.

But there's a little time left before I get too excited.

The weekend's food plans dissipated in utter sloth. But a sea bass that I'd intended to use on Sunday evening was deployed on Monday – albeit in a different way.

In an à la River Café way, I par-boiled some new potatoes and then sliced them thickly. These went into an oven dish with olive oil and sliced tomatoes, to be seasoned and then topped with the filleted the fish, before a really generous squeeze of fresh lemon was added.

And then it was into a pre-heated (200˚) oven for around 12-15 minutes (check the potatoes with a knife to see when they're completely cooked).

Nice – and far from difficult or time-consuming.

Tuesday's risotto at the top was made in my usual way: sweat finely chopped shallot, celery and garlic in olive oil. Add your risotto rice and let it pick up the rest of the oil.

Give it a slug of Noilly Prat (or vermouth or white wine) and let the rice absorb that too. Then start adding the simmering stock, a ladle at a time. This was a home-made chicken stock, which was brought gently to a simmer with some more of the dried porcini from Lina Stores.

I'd picked up some lovely mushrooms at Sporeboys on Broadway Market on Saturday, so chopped a few of these and sautéed very gently in more olive oil. A little more of the booze and a squeeze of lemon juice were added, and it was left to gently cook through.

Once the rice has taken on the stock, add some chopped parsley and then the mushrooms and stir gently.

At this point, I added some more of the truffle butter I'd used last time and then lidded it, while I heated a little more oil in the pan I'd used to cook the mushrooms – and then fried two thin slices of 'shroom I'd cut off earlier.

Those, together with more fresh parsley, then topped the finished dish.

And not only was that not at all bad, it was very much another instance of cooking as therapy.