Fast and furious first weeks time traveling through France. Disoriented from the deeply, essential humanness of the cave paintings, and Carnac megaliths compounded by the amazing engineering + slavery of Mt St Michel juxtaposed with the graves, battlefields of WW1 and WW2. That sums up France so far. Everywhere is history that we continue to forget and repeat.
We left on this trip with no set itinerary. Days were busy, evenings were consumed with “where to next” and “how do we get there”. As noted before, public transport in France in the winter was a major player in choosing where we went and at this point we just wanted to stop moving for a bit but stay entertained. So we went to Narbonne. Not sure why other than it sounded good, our train ride would parallel the Canal du Midi and we found a nice place to stay. It was a good choice.
A cat sit in Montpelier awaited us, so we went ahead and booked a week since a longer stay equals significant discounts. A beautiful apartment in the center of town, opposite our newly beloved Canal du Midi (https://chosenfugue.xyz/2025/10/30/everything-toulouse/). The apartment itself was extravagant mainly because it had a washer and DRYER. Dryers are not easy to find in Europe, and the weather was getting too cold to rely on hanging clothes to dry.
Our timing was perfect, we arrived to the grand opening of the Christmas Market, including free cup of wine (tasted and felt like bar mitzvah/wine!).
Our offseason travel has given us the gift of experiencing Christmas Markets in multiple towns and countries; from the extravagant drunken fueled ones of Germany https://chosenfugue.xyz/2020/06/02/cologne-not-alone-for-christmas/ to the neighborhoody, almost quaint drunken ones of Croatia https://chosenfugue.xyz/2018/12/04/pula-treiste-and-rijeka-the-istrian-trilogy-part-2/ The French ones have more of a carnival party feel with carnival and pony rides, ice skating, shopping huts and of course food and drink booths followed by drunken dancing lights shows nightly. After the inauguration event of the Advent season, we left our apartment everyday to the sounds of Christmas music- it actually was better than it seems (hello Felice Navidad on repeat)
Despite it’s small size, there was a lot to walk to (basically what we do) , but also, importantly, it had good access to day trips, although we ended up just doing one since we were enjoying our time truly getting to know Narbonne.
Narbonne like pretty much all European cities has a very long varied history but due to it’s location close to Spain and the sea plus on a primary Roman road (Via Domitia), influences were a bit different then other French cities. Romans, Visigoths, Arabs, Carolingians, Capets, Jews all called it home from 118 BC until the 14th C but then the main river changed course and no one wanted to call it home. Resurgence in popularity occurred in the 16th century when the Canal de la Rabine was started which eventually linked to the Canal Du Midi and it’s role as a transit hub returned. It was very cool to walk along these historical canals that are still here today.
The town itself was fairly small, and we managed to walk the length from the mall (GIANT Carrefour market dwarfing a super Target) on the outskirts to the other outskirts for a Turkish market (where we discovered walnut butter-pretty good, not great or worth repeating) next door to Lidl (GIANT bargains). In between we passed the Cathedral, the Lapidaire Museum, underground Roman ruins (Horreum Romain), Les Halles (food hall), and even Charles Trenet birth home and museum. We had never heard of him either, until we learned he wrote and sang La Mer, aka Beyond the Sea ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8OlDPqYBLw).
We almost did not go on our day trip to Perpignan because we got pretty comfortable in Narbonne walking around the canal, or to the various Carrefour markets; Giant, City and Express. But we were here and there were 1 Euro tickets available, so why not, we went. The train south toward the Spanish border traveled along the French Mediterranean past flamingo filled ponds.
The train dropped us at the Perpignan railway station defined by Salvador Dali as the “Center of the Universe” after he experienced cosmogonic ecstasy on September 19th 1963. This is documented in a painting called La Gare de Perpignan in 1965 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Gare_de_Perpignan. We had to agree, although we always thought that the Woodman + Moorpark intersection in Sherman Oaks was the center of the universe, albeit absent the cosmogonic ectasy.
Perpignan had a pretty different history then Narbonne, the influence here is Majorcan, it was the capital of the kingdom of Majorca and it’s brick buildings reflect that. It did have a different look from other French cities. It’s about 50 km from the Spain and Catalan is still a prominent language and culture. There are all the expected things, castles, palaces, cathedrals, canals, Christmas market, Galleries Lafayette department store (good place to find a bathroom).
Unexpected, we wandered to the Hôtel Pams, the home of Pierre Bardou, one of the founders of the JOB cigarette papers (aka ZigZag) and then expanded by his son in law Jules Pam (hence the name) between 1852 and 1872. Like the Toulouse City Hall, https://chosenfugue.xyz/2025/10/30/everything-toulouse/ it was spectacular. Apparently, all those guys in high school rolling joints and the weird guys rolling their own tobacco cigarettes were just celebrating this exquisite art filled house.
Unexpected, there was the Centre d’art contemporain Walter-Benjamin and yes we did go in because of the name. This tiny museum, the exhibit was good, did not have a connection to Walter Benjamin although Walter Benjamin did start his escape from the Nazis from Perpignan to Portbou, Spain. We are apparently suckers for Walter Benjamin marketing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Benjamin
We loved our stay in far southeastern France, in fact it has never left our mind, it won’t leave yours either as you already probably have La Mer stuck in your head https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKOpxCP5TGM.
Chosen Fugue 