Perpignan is an old Basque city in the south of France, located between the Mediterranean Sea and the Pyrenees Mountains near the eastern border of Spain.
Several years ago while Thibaut was living in New York, his parents had sold their house in Courbevoie — just outside of Paris, across the Seine — and purchased and Le Mas du domaine de Montcalm; an old farm near Perpignan in Thuir.
Thibaut’s father is an architect and designed the renovations, turning the 1870’s-era main building into a combination home and vacation rental, with a set of Gîtes and Chambres d’hôtes and a grand Salle de Réception for events.
Gîtes are a series of small, multi-room vacation rentals, each including a kitchen, living room and multiple bedrooms. Chambres d’hôtes are rooms to rent, very similar to an American bed and breakfast, while a Salle de Réception is an open space for events.
The trip to Perpignan begins at the northern platform of the Gare du Lyon station in Western Paris.
Thibaut had told me a week before that he was able to take time off of work and we purchased our tickets on the TGV high speed rail line departing Tuesday morning.
We bought some food and had coffee and a croissant at the station before boarding our train. As we sat down the train pulled from the platform and slowly picked-up speed as we went through central Paris, passed the Banlieue and out into the countryside.
Once out of Paris Thibaut told me that his wife was pregnant and the trip was a sort of final celebration before settling in for a busy fall with work and preparations for his new daughter.
We both worked for a while on the train then sat and talked for the remainder of the journey.
The TGV is a high speed train that at full-tilt is moving at upwards of 300 kilometers per hour (181mph).
The entire trip lasts around five hours with the final stretch winding along the coast, through small villages and past the harbors and towns of Avignon, Nimes, Montpellier, Sete, Agde, Beziers, and Narbonne.
We arrived mid-afternoon and were greeted by Thibaut’s sister, Tiphaine and her husband Mus. The humidity was intense and Thibaut and I struggled to adjust to the new climate.
Nearing 5 in the afternoon, we loaded into Mus and Tiphaine’s small Renault, picked their son Mathis up from preschool and made our way out to Thuir to spend the next week eating and drinking well in the small village near the ocean.
The final day we had a birthday celebration for Thibaut’s mother, which consisted of an enormous lunch cooked by Tiphaine and Mus. Afterwards his mother made us sandwiches from the pâté we had eaten as hors d’oevres before the meal along and packed several cold drinks in the bag for us to eat on the journey home.
Thanks to the Bernadac family.