I guess it seems like we took my sister’s honeymoon for her, as we left for the airport directly from her wedding reception and flew to France. It was time to introduce my husband to Cerbere.

We’d made a brief visit the previous Fall, but with everything closed for the season and my friends from the hotel on vacation, we just had a short visit, staying in Collioure for a few days.

We did find a favorite Collioure restaurant, Le Puits, where we subsequently dined many times over the next 8 years or so. Sadly it is now a pizza parlor! Madame, who ran the restaurant, was very correct and exact in everything she did. She was the epitome of the French “politesse.” And she did not suffer tourists gladly.   I remember overhearing her explain to a French couple one evening, when they mentioned having paella, “Oh, that’s just for the tourists.” After that, we made sure we always ordered fish, which we adored anyway, and made sure she noticed that we knew how to filet it ourselves! It was in this small restaurant that our daughter, at the age of 4 or 5 years old, learned to behave impeccably and to speak very quietly in French restaurants. Anything above a bare whisper during a meal was frowned upon.

So we arrived in Paris mid-August the following year, with the idea that we would find a summer residence in the Roussillon to purchase. We’d been in contact with a British woman who ran a realty company there, specializing in selling property to Brits. So to get things lined up, so to speak, we went to a large bank in Paris and asked about borrowing money to purchase a property. There we were told that the banks in France would not lend us money for a house unless it was our primary residence. That turned out to be false, but it left us very discouraged at the time. When we arrived in the south, our British realtor assured us that we should be able to get a loan of 50% of the purchase price from local banks. We arranged some showings over the next few days and headed on to Cerbere.

With flowers in hand for the patron’s wife, we arrived at the hotel, surprising the patron in the kitchen, where he was busy cleaning fish. We were soon installed in a lovely suite above the bar, with living room, kitchenette, bath, bedroom, and balcony with table and chairs. Once again I spent most of my days walking through the village, finding solace in the peace and the friendliness of the residents. One evening we attended the mass for St. Mary in the church, where we all held lighted candles, sang the Ave Maria, and walked to the front of the church to place candles in the sand. It was simple and very beautiful.

The following week began our viewing of Roussillon properties. We had a top price limit set and we knew we wanted something easy to care for and with a view of the sea. We met our realtor in Bages, a small village far from the sea, to see a 100 year-old village house. On the ground floor was a living room with built-in corner cupboard, and a kitchen with old shallow marble sink and a door into a wine cave in the corner. The second floor was a bedroom and the third floor was a bedroom and roof-top terrace. It was lovely, rambling, needed lots of work, but appealed to us as it was old and interesting. Unfortunately, it did not have a bathroom or toilet and would need at least 10 years of vacations to renovate for our use! And no view of the sea. Then on to Fourques, where we saw an apartment which was even smaller, done up by an English couple (lots of clutter and frou-frou), had tiny balconies, and the kitchen was on the second floor (lots of grocery-toting up stairs), which did not appeal. The third property was in Trouillas, which had lovely dining room on the first floor and, once again, a kitchen on the second floor. I could see myself trying to carry dishes of food down the steps to the dining room and dirty dishes back up afterwards….not my cup of tea. And still no view of the sea.

That afternoon, she finally took us to see properties along the coast. The one in St. Cyprien was near the beach, but no view of the sea, then a few others much smaller and not as nice. The apartment in Barcares was actually along a dock, to which large powerboats were tethered. We envisioned loud boat parties late at night, keeping us awake all summer long. Thus far, we were not seeing anything that suited us and so we went off to Barcelona for a few days of reflection and Gaudi. There we had an adventure.

My husband wanted to visit an art gallery in Barcelona, but we were having trouble finding it on our map. A man and his wife came along and asked us in English if he could help us. So we asked the man if he could direct us to the art gallery we were seeking.   Speaking a little English, he directed us to follow him. Well, beware of following strangers! We ended up at his leather goods shop, trying on leather motorcycle jackets and sipping sherry! We never did get to the art gallery, but we did get a glass of sherry! And, no, we did not purchase a leather jacket!

That evening we went to our favorite restaurant, Reno’s, at the earliest time one could eat dinner in Spain, after 10 p.m. As usual, dinner was lovely: fettucini with truffles, quail stuffed with foie gras, champagne sorbet. We had fun listening to the four American women at the next table.   Funny how we assume no one around us understands English when we’re in a foreign country.   One of them mentioned she’d danced with a faucet exporter; we longed to ask her if she’d tap-danced with him!

After our return to Cerbere, we decided to visit the local realtor, situated beside the hotel. We did not receive a very cordial welcome. Perhaps he was just puzzled as to why an American couple would want to purchase property in his village. He finally said we could visit a house for sale on Rue des Falaises and he had me sign a paper saying I would not buy it except through him. He also called our British realtor and was quite rude to her! We left to find this house for sale and ran into the patron’s son, who told us we should be sure to see it because he was certain the view was over the national route, not the sea! He was correct.

We went to sleep that night, once again discouraged about finding property in the Roussillon. At 1:30 or 2 a.m., we were both awakened by the sound of the realtor’s voice in the bar below our balcony. What a comedy ensued! Below was the realtor and our friend, the patron, talking, and above was my husband and I trying to see and hear everything that was going on without being seen, standing on chairs, hanging onto window ledges, crawling out on the balcony! All we could decipher was the realtor loudly asking the patron over and over again if we really had the capital to purchase property and the patron’s quiet replies of assurance. We spent the remainder of the night playing cards and wondering whether or not we’d “passed the test”!

When we arrived at the realtor’s at 10 a.m. the following morning, the realtor was very cordial. He informed us that the house on Rue des Falaises had been sold, but that he had an apartment over the butcher shop for sale at exactly the top of our price range. I said, “Well, there’s not really a view of the sea from there.” “Oh, yes, madam,” he answered. “There’s a view if you just look across the square and through the buildings!” We thanked him and said we’d think about it. We told the patron what we’d been offered and he was appalled. “C’est absurde!” What then followed was to give us exactly what we were searching for. The patron picked up the phone and called his friend, the poissoniere (fishmonger) in Banyuls-sur-Mer, the neighboring village. His friend was about to retire and had been looking at properties in Banyuls. We made an arrangement to meet him the following day in Banyuls on our way back up to Paris.

That evening we had a lovely last dinner in the hotel restaurant and invited the patron and his wife to join us in the evening for a farewell. With gifts laid out for them, cheese and toasts ready to have with a bottle of Banyuls, we were ready for a lovely evening of conversation. The patron told me they had bought the building where our room and the bar is located in the late 60s or 70s, but that a lady lived in the apartment on the second floor and he could not put her out. I wonder how that turned out in the end. We also shared a bottle of champagne and talked of the realtor, Mitterand, travel, their son, and vacations, then promised to return in October when the village would be quieter and they could visit with us at a more leisurely pace.

The following day, we packed up, checked out, said our last farewells to the hotel staff, and headed up to Banyuls-sur-Mer. There we found the fishmonger on Rue St. Pierre and he directed us to his realtor across from the wineries. We were shown two apartments in a residence on a hill overlooking the beach and harbor. The first was absolutely perfect: one bedroom, small kitchen, bathroom, and living room with tiled balcony overlooking the beach.

And the price was less than our top limit. We were ecstatic! The realtor was very nice, no pressure, and said he would make the mortgage arrangements for us. We left for Paris with our heads buzzing with ideas and excitement. Several days later, as we sat in a café in Versailles, we made the decision to try to purchase that wonderful apartment in Banyuls. We wrote a post card to our British realtor, directing her to make contact with the nice realtor in Banyuls and to negotiate the deal for us.   Four months later, we were on our way back to the Roussillon to take possession of our newly acquired property.

 

 

I first saw the little village of Cerbere on the southern border of France in 1972 and was completely bowled over by the sight. I’d taken myself on my own “grand tour” of Europe that summer, visiting Amsterdam, Paris, Karlsruhe, Barcelona, Rome, Copenhagen, and Sweden.   By the time I’d spent my few days in Barcelona, I was ready to return to France where I could once again have a passing understanding of the language around me.   At the border, we all had to change trains, as was obligatory due the difference in track gauge, and this was at the small village of Cerbere.

SNCF had set up a special counter in the station for summer travelers that year, to assist in finding connecting trains. An energetic curly-haired man was busy helping traveling students and coping with bewildered seniors. He quickly found trains for me, then tried to convince me that I should visit his village as I had a six hour wait until my train to Arles, a short stop on the way to Rome. But I was so happy to be back in France, that staying in the train station for six hours did not seem a chore at all. I was there and I wanted to stay put!

When the train pulled into the station that afternoon, my curly-haired friend kindly helped me into an empty compartment, with my luggage and a dinner box of roast chicken from the station restaurant, then handed me a paperback book in English, which he’d found at the station kiosk! “I don’t understand the title,” he said, “but I thought you might enjoy it because it’s in English!” I looked at the title, “Fly Girls,” and at the provocative cover, and simply explained that it was about airline stewardesses. It was a kind gesture, particularly since I continued to refuse his suggestion that I stay the night in Cerbere. And so he left the train after repeatedly making sure no one else would try to come into my compartment (“C’est complet, monsieur! C’est complet, Mesdames!”), and as the train pulled out of the station, I looked out my window and saw the village, glaring white in the afternoon sun, nestled up against the foothills of the Pyrenees as the blue Mediterranean Sea splashed to its shore. And I was smitten! I vowed then and there that I would return to visit this lovely village perched on the French-Spanish border.

It took me 8 years to fulfill that promise, but finally in 1980, I was once more free to travel to Europe and planned a week at a cookery course in Dieppe and a week in Cerbere, with several days in Paris in between. One of my colleagues at the university agreed to accompany me, then at the last moment announced that her mother would also be joining us. As things turned out, my colleague decided to go to Brussels to visit her new boyfriend and I found myself on the day train, traveling south from Paris, with her mother spending most of her time in the club car.

We arrived in Cerbere at 10 in the evening and there at the station was my curly-haired friend from 1972! Of course he did not know me from Adam, as I’m sure there were many young ladies traveling across the border in the past eight years, and perhaps several were more agreeable to “spending time” with him in Cerbere. But he was his usual helpful self. My calls to get a taxi did not work, so my friend called the hotel for us, and the patron of the hotel came to the station in a car. We loaded the luggage in the back, then tried to get the front seats to move forward so we two ladies could sit in the back, but none of us could figure out how to accomplish this! It turned out that this car belonged to the chef at the hotel’s restaurant! So we squeezed through the narrow gap between the seats and had a good laugh over our adventure. Once we arrived at the hotel, the patron took our luggage to our room in the annex, located across the square, while we had dinner. Unfortunately, we had to share a room that first night. “No, no!” I said to the patron. “I cannot sleep in the same room with her!” “Tomorrow,” he assured me. “We will have another room ready tomorrow.” And so my first night in Cerbere, which I hadn’t seen properly yet because it was dark when we arrived, was spent dealing with my roommate’s radio and her drinking and loud snoring.

However, as life teaches us, everything looks better in the morning and so it was as I had breakfast at the hotel, then wandered about the village, doing a little shopping for spices, magazines and post cards. That first day of exploration was my first step in a love affair with this village that will never die.

The weather was gorgeous, although the wind kept us cool. It was April and the tramontane wind still had several months to blow itself out. I found a bank to exchange money and discovered it was open only two days a week for an hour and a half in the morning and the afternoon. This was, indeed, a small village! I quickly found the tunnel that takes one directly from the train station to the beach, then the church, which had unusual doors, one opening one way and the next opening the other.

 

That afternoon, I did manage to move into another room and I told my friend’s mother that I would be pleased to meet her for meals at the hotel, but that I had come to Cerbere to be alone. That seemed to work for her as she was a bit perturbed that her daughter had gone off to Brussels. So she decided to leave the next day, when her friend from Barcelona arrived in her limousine to whisk her off to city life for a few days. Now I had Cerbere to myself!

I discovered calamar for the first time, finding it later at the poissonerie on the hill above the hotel, and I came to appreciate the simple meal of cheese omelet, green salad, and a glass of wine.  The next day I began to make my map of Cerbere. As I walked around the village and tried to visit all the little winding streets, I drew my map.

My favorite spot was up on the hill above the village. There were about four cement steps set into the hill, with a drawing of a reclining woman and a date from the early 1940s set into one of the steps. I climbed these steps and up the hill to sit in solitude, looking down over the village and out to sea, and wondered about the woman in the steps. It was peaceful at my spot on the hill, and I often found myself there, reading or writing in my journal while the village had its siesta.  And it was invigorating in the wind, although at times it was strong enough to almost blow me off the hill.

After several hours of walking around that first day, I returned to the hotel where I found the patron having a cup of tea. I asked him if I might also have a cup of tea and he explained to me that the café was actually not open during siesta, but he reluctantly brought me a cup anyway and I sat down to chat with him. “Why do you come to Cerbere at this time of year? What are you doing here? “ he asked me. I guess I was a strange duck to him, coming to this little village all the way from the US, just to walk all day and to be alone for a week. And so I told him the story of my very first almost-visit to Cerbere eight years ago and how I had promised myself that I would return as soon as I was free to do so. He wanted to know about my job at the university and I wanted to know about the tourist season on the French coast. We discussed marriage and the role of the French woman of today. Then I told him about visiting the church and how delighted I was to find a statue of Jeanne d’Arc in their village church. “You know,” he said,” the French only go to church four times in their lifetimes: to be baptized, to be confirmed, to be married, and to be buried!”   We sipped our tea and lemon water, discussing life in general and thus began what was to be a long and warm friendship of more than 35 years.

My colleague arrived the next day on an early train. I had two hours to show her around my beloved village before putting her on another train on to Barcelona to join her mother.

That afternoon I finished my map of the village and then took all my courage in my hands and approached the patron with a very important question.

“Please, monsieur, would it be possible for me to sit in the kitchen and watch the chef work?” His eyes opened and he tried to keep from laughing. “You want to watch the chef in the kitchen?!” “Yes,” I replied. “Please?” In the corner of the dining room I could see the patron’s elderly mother, sitting in her usual seat, mending the sheets. Her ears perked up and she quickly came over to see what the fuss was all about. “She wants to watch the chef in the kitchen!” he explained to his mother. Turning to me, his mother asked, “Are you interesting in the cooking?” What could I say but “YES!” “Well,” the patron answered at last, “then you will have to ask my chef!”   And so I very carefully approached the chef at the door of his kitchen and asked if I could sit and watch him work tomorrow. He looked at me sternly and said, “You must be very quiet and watch only!”   “Oh, yes!” I replied. “I will be as quiet as a mouse!”

I was so excited as I sat down to dinner that night. Two Americans came into the hotel looking for a place to stay between trains and I talked them into staying at the hotel, telling them how wonderful a place it was. Then I assisted a young British boy order his dinner.   I felt I could do anything!

The following day was the best day of my life thus far, and I will always be grateful to that young chef who allowed me to enter his kingdom for a day. Immediately after breakfast, I took a chair into the kitchen and sat along the wall, out of the way, and I watched everything until noon, when it was time for lunch. I was back in my chair by 12:30 and stayed until 2 p.m. Then siesta until 5 p.m. and back to the kitchen until 9 p.m. I watched the chef make fish dishes, the coating for pork, pastry, soupe de poissons, and many other dishes I no longer remember. He gave me a very large and heavy cookbook to look at (I have since purchased both the French and the English edition of “L’Art Culinaire Francais”). After a while, he became a bit curious, I guess, because he asked me about food in the US and in Sweden. And then he began to explain all sorts of things to me. His sous-chef showed me how to make vinaigrette, and the chef showed me how to make several different kinds of omelets. It was really wonderful.

The following day was my last day in Cerbere. My colleague and her mother arrived from Barcelona in time for lunch at the hotel. I had the dorade au l’aioli, made especially beautiful for me by the chef. In the afternoon, there was a wedding at the mairie.

I followed the procession to the church for the religious ceremony. The church was packed and I stood in the back with many others. When the collection bag came past me, I added some money and heard a gasp from my neighbors in the back of the church. Had I given too much? I suppose I had as they were smiling kindly at me. But I didn’t care because I had fallen in love with their village and all was right with the world.

Back at the hotel, I paid my bill and gave extra tips to the servers, then said a sad farewell to the chef, promising to send recipes from the US. A final farewell to the patron’s mother in the annex followed, then the last few minutes waiting outside the restaurant for the taxi that would take us to the station. The patron gave us a bottle of wine for the train, and, as we pulled away, he stood at the window with the other men at the bar and waved to us. It was very difficult to leave this village that I had grown to love so much.

Over the years, I have visited Cerbere many times, accompanying the patron and his friends to their secret mushroom spots on the mountains for a day of hunting the elusive cepes, spending an afternoon with the patron’s son at his grand piano as we shared our love of music, and many years later taking my husband to Cerbere for a week ,as we searched for an apartment to purchase in the Roussillon. We didn’t end up buying property in Cerbere, but in the neighboring village of Banyuls sur Mer, and therein lies another tale!

I have rejoiced over the years of looking in guidebooks and finding very little mention of Cerbere, as it was a secret place I cherished and which I did not want to be spoiled. But times change and roads change, so perhaps it’s time for Cerbere to come out of the shadows and become someone else’s best-kept secret! The hotel is still there and now run by the third generation of the family. The chef trained his brother to succeed him, then went off to work in the kitchens of Air France. So I still have my good friends to look after me when I appear on their doorstep, and I know that in Cerbere I will always find my solace in the winding streets and steep hillside, the blue of the sea, and the white buildings in the afternoon sun.

November 23, 2015