We’ve been staying at Fanjeaux for years so we’ve visited Revel several times but always on a Saturday, market day. Bang in the middle of Revel’s central square is magnificent old covered market hall, its roof supported by ancient timbers. The square itself is surrounded by characterful buildings with some classic French shutters and ironwork. On a Saturday with the market in full swing, much of the interesting detail is obscured so Francine fancied a look without the usual obstructions and crowds. We whizzed off again thinking we might find lunch over there.
We had failed to account for something. When a French square is left free to public access it tends to become a car park. Such was the case today. So, instead of market stalls and throngs, she now had many voitures to deal with. Well, Francine likes a challenge.
We’d had thoughts of sitting outside for lunch drinking in the atmosphere along with a spot of vin but that was scuppered, too. There were several bars with folks drinking various beverages but we saw just a couple of restaurants and the one of those that looked appealing to us was fully booked.
We thought of a few alternatives including Castelnaudary, which must have a selection of restos, and good ol’ Lac de Lenclas which was close and which we knew also has a restaurant.
Since Lac de Lenclas was closer we tried that as plan B. Whilst there is indeed a restaurant this was not one of the days upon which it was open. We weren’t having much luck. Right then, plan C it is.
We drove down one of the main streets in Castelnaudary and, passing a square, saw several restaurants with many people sitting out in the sunshine. This looked more like it. We crossed the Canal du Midi and found a parking place on the street. Walking back towards town the canal front had a couple of attractive looking eateries beside the water so, rather than sit in the middle of town, we opted for those.
We got tired of waiting at the first to find out what the form was but the second proved appealing, didn’t keep us waiting and its menu was offering a few tapas for lunch instead of a large plateful of too much food, which isn’t really our midday style. We chose some tuna samosas and calamari to share, together with a bottle of rosé, most of which was for Francine, with me needing to drive. OK, samosas aren’t particularly Spanish but let’s not get picky; they were very good.
We sauntered off lunch by wandering along the canal to the basin. Quite why the basin of the canal here needs to be quite so wide is beyond me but such a construction would not have been built without good reason, I’m sure. The backdrop of Castelnaudary behind the basin is difficult to capture so, despite my better judgement, I resorted to trying a panorama on my accursed mobile phone camera. Like veggie food, I don’t want this to become a habit. Despite having pretty awful resolution (most phone cameras do better) I think as a representation it’s done a decent job with some judicious cropping.
We were invited back up to Luc & Nadine’s in the evening for aperitifs, which came accompanied by a sort of Roquefort cheesecake and some of Luc’s fabrication maison air-dried sausages. Aperitifs finished quite late at about 21:00 so we needed little more than a nibble of cheese before retiring for the night.
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