We stop for gazole at a place with one clerk in a payment booth and gates for entry and exit. After fueling, cars must line up to pay the clerk in the booth and exit through a barred gate. The movement of the line of vehicles stalls. We look to the booth and recognize the universal frustrated behavior of a clerk who is on the telephone with tech support and still unable to get a machine to do what it is supposed to do. When one customer drives off through the entry without paying, she sprints to block the entry until this problem is resolved. The exit bar finally raises so the first car can pull off to the side, and allow cash paying customers exit. Between the three of us, we have the exact change. She is gracious to us; we imagine we could have learned the French phrase for, "They don't pay me enough to put up with this sh*t."
We are still unable to find a bank in Narbonne that will exchange dollars for euros. One bank teller says they only do it for their existing customers. Another teller suggests we try a bank at the train station. We find the train tracks when the road goes over them. We never find the road’s exit to the train station.
We enter Autoroute 9 farther south than we want to be for our Google Map to direct us to the abbey we want to visit today. The next exit for a turnaround is 35 kilometers away. We stop at a travel center with an ATM where we can use the Travel Visa debit cards to withdraw Euros and again be the Chesnut bank to exchange some Euros for dollars for Pat.
When we arrive at the correct exit, we continue to have difficulties finding and staying on the local roads to the Fontfroide Abbey because the Google Map directions confuse us. The Michelin map helps us outside Narbonne. We stay on same road at roundabouts unless we spot a sign that changes our direction. This abbey is not easy to spot from the road. It may be a large structure halfway up a mountainside but it is nestled in a valley.
L’Abbaye de Fontfroide is well preserved for the same Fayet family has owned it for the past 100 year after the last monks left. It is a splendid example of private initiative helping to preserve a national treasure that otherwise might simply have crumbled away. Even though we have the English audio guides, we must be part of a French-speaking guided tour through the abbey. While we wait for the next tour, we walk on the nature trail but we don’t have the time to climb to the top where an Iron Cross is visible for miles.
Because the guide talks longer and gestures to more things than our audio-guides discuss, we feel as though we are not as well-informed as the rest of the group.
The beautiful stained glass is not original to the abbey. The commissioned artist commissioned has used found shards of stained glass shattered by bombings from WWII to make new windows.
The beautiful rose garden has more than 2000 rose plants. This garden is over the former burial grounds of monks and abbots who died here.
Tonight we eat at a restaurant in Narbonne-Plage. It is open to serve wine before its dinner hours. Patrick asks if we can be served food from the dinner menu even though we were early, and they agree. (It looks as if they are glad for business today, now that the tourist season is over.) They have an English menu where we can order by pointing at the numbers! I had a #18 salad composée (similar to a garden salad) and #27 marguerite pizza. Don ordered #41 salmon with frites and Patrick had steak with mushroom sauce. We shared dessert: chocolate fondant and creme brulée. Patrick has a red wine and we have white.
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