Vacation to Sigean

Mid-July 2016, I rented a mobile home at a campsite in Sigean. The boys and I spent a week there discovering the Languedoc region. We went there around the 14th of July so we could visit Carcassonne and attend the city’s famous fireworks on Bastille Day. 

We arrived on Sunday the 10th in the afternoon, and checked into our mobile home in Sigean :

 

The final game of the European soccer championship happened to be that evening and the french team had made it this far so we turned on the TV and watched our team get defeated by Portugal.

On Monday we headed to the beach :

 

 

The next day, we visited Narbonne, which used to be a major city in Roman times. It is located on the Via Domitia, a road built by the Romans over 2000 years ago to connect Spain to Italy. Remains of the road have been excavated and can be seen in the center of the city

My kids love sightseeing

Beautiful arc-shaped structure in the old part of town

Inside the unfinished cathedral, under construction since the 13th century

The outside of the cathedral

Out the back of the cathedral we found a park where the city had set up several games and activities for families. We spent a fair amount of our day there.

Then, we walked along the canal and I enjoyed the scenery and reading about historical sites while the boys followed along as patiently as possible (as long as I supplied sufficient bait along the way).

The next day, we went to the "Réserve africaine de Sigean", a very large drive-through zoo with hundreds of wild animals wandering free in the park.

I think the boys absolute favorite thing about the park is that they were allowed to ride in the car without their seat belts ! (and Josh sat on the front seat), it made his day.

Our first encounter was with this group of bears. They were all gathered around the entrance gate, probably hoping to make their escape (I took the picture as we were exiting that area of the park).

The lions snubbed us of course

This rhino started charging in our direction ! so we hurried away.

Fun day !

On the 14th of July we drove to Carcassonne about an hour west of our location. Sad fact: there was a major forest fire along that road a few hours after we took it. We were very blessed to have been protected from it.

Carcassonne was magical. It was like going back to medieval time.

Inside the cathedral

Part of the famous city wall and towers

We attended a very entertaining joust battle/medieval comedy with acrobats doing incredible stunts on horseback. Knights were fighting against knights in a vigorous battle to retrieve a mysterious stollen treasure. Of course the spunkiest knight succeeded in retrieving the precious treasure : a jar containing the original recipe for Cassoulet !

 

We finished the day watching the sunset from the side of the road, just outside the city, anxiously waiting for the notorious fireworks (called "Embrasement de la cité" - the blaze up of the city).

It was so cold we wrapped ouselves in our beach towels !

While we were driving home, listening to the radio for updates about the fire and for traffic guidelines, we started hearing the first reports of a terrorist attack in Nice. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. The boys had fallen asleep in the car. I couldn't help imagine what would have happened if a truck had crashed into the crowd where we had been sitting just a few moments before. We were hours from Nice but it felt like we were right there with them.

We took things very slowly the next day. We stayed mostly at the pool on the campsite and in the town of Sigean.

And on July 16th, our last full day there, we celebrated William’s birthday at the beach.

 It was one our best family vacations. We made so many great memories. Eventhough It was devastating thinking about all the people who had lost their life or been hurt and traumatized while they were watching the fireworks, I felt blessed to be alive. It made me feel somewhat like a survivor. I pondered how precious and how short life can be: every moment must count.