A huge day today and an extremely enjoyable outing. Scott is
a train nut so John and I had checked out doing the Petit Train Jaune (Little
Yellow Train). It named for its yellow and red colouring from the Catalan flag.
It was built in 1910 and links the towns and little villages high up in the
mountains west of Perpignan. It runs up a narrow gauge one-way track, with
about four carriages of which one has an open top.
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| Le Petit Train Jaune |
We set off bright and early to catch the 6:40am 1€ bus to Perpignan. We had
time for a very quick croissant and hot chocolate for breakfast at a café just
beside the main train station before catching the 1 hour SNCF train (also 1€) up to Villefranche-de-Conflent.
We were straight off this and queuing for only 10 minutes before getting onto
the Petit Train. Most of the tourists dived for the open air carriage, but we
didn’t fancy two hours sitting in the hot sun. We did even better, with a seat
in a covered carriage and plenty of standing room outside at its front door, in
the shade and where we could take photos on both sides.
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| The upper Tech Valley |
What fun. Scott was like a pig in mud. He stood outside the
entire trip, with John and I also being outside most of the time. It was a
fantastic trip and we would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a
day-trip from Perpignan. We started off in a wide valley, which gradually
narrowed until we were travelling along the side of an extremely deep gorge,
with little villages clinging to its sides, a narrow switchback road climbing up
the valley, plenty of tunnels and viaducts to travel through and over and
stunning scenery.
Near the end of the trip we the valley widened out into
Swiss-like meadow, which was a complete surprise. We hadn’t been expecting
this at all. The wide open fields were given over to hay making. We saw only
two herds of about a dozen cows over the entire landscape. We got off the train
at Font-Romeu and walked the short distance into the village and found a sandwich and coffee for lunch at the
only café. A quick trot back to catch the train on its return journey down the
valley. It was just as good.
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| Superb charcuterie |
Back at Villefranche-de-Conflent we had over two hours to
wander around the lovely walled town, explore the ramparts and town walls, sit
down for a delicious plate of Catalan charcuterie, complete with a pichet of
rosé before hot-footing it once again back to the train. We were pretty weary
by the time we climbed on the SNCF train back to Perpignan, and because it got
back into town a few minutes early we were able to scamper straight onto a bus
back to Céret. Tired but very happy after an exciting day we arrived home 13
hours after we had left. We heated up some quiches we had bought at the market
on Saturday for a nice easy meal and fell into bed at 10pm.
