Plateau Montpeyroux (Languedoc)

Plateau Montpeyroux (Languedoc! No, not that other one!)

Dancing Gnarly vine with Le Castellas behind

Today was full of sunshine, flowers, and vistas! AND excellent company :-)

Mimosas!

More Mimosas!

Even More Mimosas!

 The view of roads to come

Le Castellas

Everyone got quite excited by this...

Gin berries

 The valley below

Trust me, the (snow covered) Pyrenees really are there!

The Cévennes mountains, and Pyrenees behind

Le Castellas

Farmland and motocross playground

Got this rock wall just for Dad

Neolithic animal enclosure

Coming back down, you can just make out Le Castellas in he distance

Vines!

~~~
Hike/randonnée Details:
Parked near the Puit de Peyrou

and walked to Le Castellas. Then followed the red/white route until it branched off uphill (left) from the road. We stayed on the road back to our cars.
We left Sète shortly after 10:00, ate lunch at about 1:00, and were back home by 4:45.
According to our leader, it was 7.6 km, with 270 meters elevation change.

Winter in Sète

Just so we start this off right (spoiler alert, Winter here was not too great), here is a nice January sky

January in Sète

Winter in Sète is fortunately very short!

Our first real taste of Winter hit us as soon as it was official - early December skies were grey and temperatures dropped to *almost* freezing. This winter was *supposed* to be warmer than normal... Turned out that we had a cold snap. And then the January sunshine report came out - in the first half of January, Lille (admittedly pretty far North) had all of 3 hours (Three! Hours!) of sunshine. How dismal! Most of Europe had similarly less-than-normal amounts of sun :-(

Along with Winter comes Flu Season - and it hit France hard!

Flu and Gastro epidemic

And not just in France - news reached us that the flu in California was very serious as well.

At least we know how weather affects us; when thinking about where to live, it is always on our list - no place that has too much cold or grey stays under consideration. And Sète still works for us - especially now that flowers are blooming!

I'll leave you with more January skies:

Spring?

Here it is, past the middle of January - Everyone is talking about Spring! Just the other day, someone mentioned the almond blossoms...

Well, Dad always gets to see the almond trees blossoming in time for his birthday.

I can't believe I'm going to miss seeing him on his 90th birthday! Skype will have to do for several more months :-\