Mirepoix

Another back-blip.Today (April 19) is our day off, so I have time to actually sit and play with photos and write up blips!

This blip about our outing on April 17, was to the ancient bastide town of Mirepoix with its central square ( Place des Couverts) which is surrounded by medieval houses and arcades in front of its shops.....a photographer's dream.

Its Cathedral Saint Maurice is equally impressive..it has the second widest unsupported gothic arch in Europe. The widest apparently is in Girona, Spain...?

There is a lovely little boutique where one can buy jackets hand-tailored on site, fabulous coats supplied by a fellow designer, artsy scarves etc. and it never fails that some of us cannot resist and go home much more elegantly attired than when we arrived! 

Our host usually takes us to Mirepoix on market day when every inch of space is taken up by vendors... so we don't get any sketching or painting done until after 2PM when the square is cleared and back to its normal state. By then, interest in painting has waned...and there is not much to present at Show and Tell when we return home...except, of course,  purchases! 

This time, my sister and I spent some of our time exploring beyond the square and found a really fun art gallery, a tiny canal and a walking path that led us past horses in a pasture, through the woodlands and along the river Hers where we parked ourselves by the the 7-arches of the bridge that spans it and attempted to sketch as much of it as would fit on our tiny sketchbook page .... with little success. 

This sketching thing is going to take time for us to build up to a comfort level..and then at some point we will have to start applying paint! A whole new learning curve..paint in the great outdoors? while sitting on a bench or a rock..in the wind? now THAT's a challenge! 

Dinner that night was at a local restaurant - included in our le Monastère package. Seven chatty women who are not fluent in French ordering from a menu they do not understand and receiving many surprises as a result..add in hoots of laughter and beaucoup de wine..and you can imagine the rest...