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Monday, June 1, 2009 – In the Hills

Our Man in Paris is Our Man in Paris no more.  Ric Erickson, editor of MetropoleParis, has ended his many years there, and now you can find him in the South of France. He has relocated to Port-Vendres (département of Pyrénées-Orientales, Languedoc-Roussillon région), a fishing village on the Mediterranean, just north of the Spanish border, where the Pyrenees drop into the sea.

This week – after letting him know that Marseilles is building its own version of the Hollywood Sign – he took a strange jaunt in his own hills –

Monday, 1 June - Belatedly I got around to hitting the link for the fake Marseille sign. It's an indication that Marseille is coming up in the world, up from French Connection II. Good old Josef Schomberg was here and we went to look at a local ruin and one thing led to another and we walked up the hill to see the fortress on top, the Fort de Bear, Josef complaining all the way about his shiny Paris shoes getting messed up.

There is sort of a path. If you were a Boy Scout you could have seen it clearly. There was some cactus, some nettles, and some poison butterflies, and we weren't equipped with anything other than an iPhone. Josef said he had to check in to his Facebook thing. So, anyhow, the moaning about shoes, and the usual thing of getting to the top, only to find that the top is up more hill, ever more hill. Did I say it was windy too? You know, only the 50 percent medium-stiff Tramontana.

Days later, at the top, at the Fort de Bear, we heard some noises and walked around the fort to see. There were these French Commandos - the ones that fight the pirates in the Red Sea - training on their fort, sliding down ropes. Oh yeah, Josef remembered some guy named Barfly who told him about being in training at Fort de Bear. Anyhow, when the commandos saw us, they said we should piss off. Military area, keep out! Not friendly at all. So we went around where they couldn't see us and checked out the fort's drawbridge. It was closed. If it hadn't been we could have crossed the moat. Josef uploaded it all to Facebook.

Then we found the road going back down. Parts of it were Spanish style. Then we saw the barriers keeping out ordinary citizens out for a little walk. Further on down there were signs saying DANGER and Military Secrets and BOMBS. By then we could hear shooting. Pam, pam, pam, pam. Near the beehives, next to the vines, more DANGER signs, more Keep Out.

The dangerous part was walking on the main road to get back to Port Vendres. But we did it and had our usual rewards of beers and orange juice at the biker bar that we discovered. It's got a great sundown view from under its striped awning and is home to the only statue of Elvis here.

On Saturday, after the fish market, we went up behind my place and checked out some leftover WWII German bunkers. Places where they had the 88mm flak guns trained on the harbor entrance. You know, they left some great dance floors behind. Solid as hell. Like they were thinking, bring on your lousy vandals! Josef poked around and said there were tunnels between the bunkers. He used to do the catacombs in Paris.

Now he's gone back to check out his servers, his girlfriends, his Facebook, with three pots of local honey and a couple bottles of local plonk. Got on the goodfoot and took his shoes back to civilization.

Ah, oui, the Marseille sign. That's so lame. Here we have the Patazone, this area from Collioure to Saint Esteban de la Fosca, oozing over the frontera, the 66 part of Catalonia del Norte. Just don't go up the Bear like Boy Scouts on holiday.

(The "Wheee" photo was shot by Josef with his iPhone.)

~ Ric

Text and Photos Copyright © 2009 - Ric Erickson

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