We have been to some disappointing school fetes before, but neither that fact nor the fact that our neighbours next to where we are staying here at the moment had warned us (at the now-famous Pizza Competition event) not to go, off we headed to Tautavel to its Fête des Miel – its Honey Festival.  Miel in French means ‘honey’.

It was a decent drive to get to Tautavel, made a little more challenging because it had snowed overnight. But, even that did not deter us.

 

We have been to Tautavel twice before, when we were here in 2016, and you can read about those visits here and here if you like. Those visits were to do with the village’s famous prehistoric museums. But today, we wanted to attend the village’s fifth Festival of Honey. There was even an article in the local newspaper about it which convinced me it was worth a visit.

When we arrived we were underwhelmed to say the least by the market stalls.

This lone figure was trying to set up his stall in gale force winds and gently falling snow.

By now, Mick and I rate ourselves as pretty good judges of local French markets. And this one scored our second lowest score ever, just above the one in Estagel that scored a zero because it wasn’t on the day we went with our son and his friend, despite the website information to the contrary.

Just across from this (sad) market square was the Museum of Honey in Tautavel, and so with few other options, actually no other options, Mick and I ventured in. It smelt wonderful and it looked warm.

The place was stocked with loads of products and yes, there was a wall of different honeys to be purchased, at a price. It certainly was not cheap.

After tasting a few of the honeys for sale, we settled on a bottle for €10 for a 250g jar (€40/Kg or $64AUD/Kg). We knew this was very expensive, but we had travelled all this way to attend a festival (that wasn’t really on) and I did not want to leave empty handed.

We obviously didn’t stay long after the purchase, instead we headed to Estagel for a coffee and to do some shopping as it is one of the towns that has a supermarket that opens on a Sunday.

And guess what?

We could have bought a jar of the exact same honey in the supermarket for €6.50.

C’est la vie!

But the trip was not a total waste.

A few days earlier I had phoned the local hairdresser in Caudiès to make an appointment to have my hair cut. I was feeling pretty proud of myself when I hung up the call as I had an appointment for 11.15am. The only problem was I was so nervous that I could not remember if the appointment was for lundi (Monday) or mardi (Tuesday). My own hairdresser in Australia does not open on Mondays, but I still needed to be sure. So, on our way back from Tautavel we drove past the hairdresser and saw the sign that clearly said:

Lundi – Fermé. (Closed on Mondays).

So, I’ll head to my appointment with confidence (at least knowing I have the right day) on Tuesday (mardi), without having to admit that I’m a dill.

However, I am a bit worried how well I will go communicating what I want done. I’ll keep you posted.