Picking fruit in September

September 2006, there were stil a few dozen plums on the tree and the fig was covered in sweet, dark fruit. This is the time of the Vendage, when everyone is busy gathering in the grapes on the hillside. There seemed to be a lot of flies this year, and my neighbour thought perhaps it was because it was a very sweet cropping year for the Vendage. To reduce the number of insects in the garden, I picked all the remaining plums and a lot of the figs. Plums went to Suzanne who made a German plum cake, and to Louisa who makes vast quantities of confiture. The figs are just devoured for they reach the kitchen door. I also left out a fly trap as directed by Louisa - small containe with sweet syrup water inside, this, along with the fruit picking, seemed to help, but as I discovered later, the fly problem had nothing to do with the fruit or the Vendage: an old, feral, cat had died at the back of the garden. When I told my neighbour, Mickail, that I had found the source of the flies, he immediately denied any part in poisioning it!! Stephane tells me that when he was young, neighbours routinely did away with feral cats and stray kittens. I thought of the multitude of cats, foxes & squirrels that cross my back garden in London, relatively safe and secure. Within a matter of days, the garden became free of Les Mouches, but we have only just begun to enjoy the plum jam from Louisa.

Taking Public Transport?

Public transport from Perpignan to Port Vendres is easy and cheap: roundtrip/return=19.80 euros in total for bus and train (approx £12.00). ON ARRIVAL: Take bus (the Navette) waiting outside arrivals at airport to train station- 10 minute bus trip. Train to Port Vendres leaves at 5:25pm and at 7:18pm. WHAT TO DO TO FOR 2 HOURS IN PERPIGNAN? Lots of boutiques, restaurants and cafes in old town to while away your time, have an aperitif etc. Allow 30 minutes to walk there and back - don't want to miss your train, there may not be another one that night! TRAIN stops: Perpignan-Elne-Argeles-Collioure-PORT VENDRES (25 mins). Apartment is 10-15 mins walk away (use map I will send you). RETURNING: Double check train/bus times. Train to Perpignan leaves Port Vendres approx 12:40pm. Navette from outside Perpignan train station leaves for airport approx 4pm.

Photos of living room

Photos of bedrooms

Photos of bathroom

Photos of the Kitchen

A Video of the Region (Pyrenees Oriental)

http://www.panosphere.org/cdt66/film2

Availabilty

See availability chart

More garden views

This is a 'before' picture of the top terrace on the garden - adjacent to the wooden terrace. This is how it use to look. Now we tend to dine on this terrace, and it is framed by a pergola with grapevine. More pictures to come...

Garden Views

Next door to our home is a little primary school which bears the legend "Liberté, égalité, fraternité". This view is taking from the garden steps, just after you pass under the cherry tree, looking west to the school and the low mountains beyond.

There are so many roses in the garden and something is always in bloom. On Christmas Day 2003 it was 70f and I was clipping the white roses to take to dinner.

Roses, Oleanders, Olives, Cherry, Plum, Lemons, Figs, Grapes, Apples, Apricots, Mulberry & Pears

This is a photo from 2002. When I started work on the garden it already had a large established plum tree (that produces both yellow and purple plums in July/August), an ancient but very sweet fig tree (August/September), and a cherry tree whose fruit gets eaten by the birds in May. There was also an espaliad pear, lots of apples, a mulberry and as we later discovered, a fabulous apricot tree.

Since then I've added an olive and two lemons trees and lots of herbs. A grape self seeded in a perfect spot for a pergola, and produces plentiful bunches of sweet black grapes.

May and June gets very few visitors to the garden, which is a shame because so much is in bloom and the weather is brilliant. It also means the garden doesn't get watered at a key time of the year, so we are devising a solar watering system (since sun is dependable here) to keep everything thriving.

I can only garden here intermittently, so somethings give up the ghost and shrivel away, while others fail to thrive. But in the main, the garden is full of plants that can survive a bit of drought, wind, and strong sunshine, and fertile but shallow soil over rock.

Succulents

All kinds of succulents and cacti grow and flower in the garden.

Entrance from the square below:

The garden apartment is on the third floor of a traditional 'bourgeois' Catalan house on a square, 2 streets above the harbour. Built directly into the rock in the late 1890s, only our top floor apartment has a garden. In fact we have two gardens! There is a large wooden terrace surrounded by flowers, herbs, roses & large plum tree directly in front of the french doors/entrance to the apartment (not shown in this photo). We also own the strip of terraced garden that runs adjacent to the apartment and the house, shown here in this photo. You enter via our garden gate in the square, and climb up through our terraced garden to the top level, pass across the wooden terrace and from there into the apartment.

This is one of the very few apartments in this area, so close to the sea, with such a large outdoor area. When its hot you want to be outside. But yes, there are a lot of stairs. In fact the whole town is full of steps and stairs - one of the reason everyone looks so healthy here - they regularly get a good workout!

Where is Port Vendres?

Port-Vendres (the Roman Portus Veneris), is the 3rd deepest port in France, lying in a sheltered inlet it is both a seaside resort as well as a fishing and commercial port with a Harbor which is now also used by pleasure boats. In the 17th C it was fortified by Vauban as a naval port, and still preserves the Fort du Fanal. To the east of the town Cap Béar reaches out to sea.