Corinne CrawfordWhen I met Bart and Alice in Colombia, they were traveling around South America for 6 months. They lived in Brussels but were so excited that they just bought an old home in a small village where Alice spent her childhood summers and where her mother now lived. Pradelles Carbardes had between 80-100 inhabitants but the population swelled in the summer when folks visited family or their second homes. There are no restaurants, no gas stations, no stores. Just houses on narrow streets, each one higher on the hill parallel to the one prior, and the church with a very small “town square”. It was beyond charming. Bart picked me up at the small train station about 20 minutes from Pradelles Carbardes in a town called Mazamet. We drove the curvy mountain roads to the manmade lake near the town. The small restaurant on the shore serves the summer crowd and the adjacent camping areas that fill up during the warmer months. As it was the first weekend in October, this was their last day open and lots of people came out to have one last meal and drink by the lakeside. They knew they might be busy and were short-handed so they actually had asked Alice at the last minute to come help. I found out later that they also asked her mom to come help in the kitchen. We enjoyed a good meal, which was great because I was starving having not eaten at all that day. As the crowd was wrapping up, Alice, Bart and I all went to the house in the village. To say that I loved their charming home is an understatement. Perhaps it is just that Bart and Alice are two of the nicest people I have ever met in my life.
They are just so easy and comfortable to be around. When we planned my visit they didn’t even ask me how long I was staying, they just told me I was welcome. Their home offered the same warmth and comfort as their company. The downstairs had several rooms, one with a big fireplace that we lit in the evenings and mornings to ward off a bit of a chill and then there were 4 bedrooms upstairs. They offered me the room with the best view of the mountains beyond. There was one bathroom upstairs split into 3 areas, as the design of the house is quite old. There was the room with the sink, then another room with the toilet, then another room with the shower. They let me rest for a while in my guest room and then in the evening, we all went to the town square for a BBQ. When you figure the town as 80-100 people living there, the BBQ had about 15-20% of the population there. The reason for the BBQ was simply because Alice’s mom got a new BBQ. It was fancy thing that was part fire pit, part BBQ and everyone brought a dish to share while duck, shrimp and other goodies were put on the BBQ.
French BBQ’s are fancy, there was good cheese, bread, olives, and of course wine. Alice was tired from her day of working so she did an Irish goodbye and as the night wore on, Bart and I bid our goodbyes and walked the block back to their home.
