Day 5 - Around Arles-sur-Tech

Some of us were up early, making tea and writing up the diary - but others were a bit slow starting (and had the cheek to complain they'd not been given tea, when in fact they'd dozed off again!!)

We breakfasted, showered, tidied and so on, then decided to walk down into the town. As we left, we looked back at our "emplacement" and the hills beyond. At this point we had tidied up so you don't see the general clutter we'd been surrounded by the previous evening!

As we descended into the village the view back was good too.

We pottered around the town, did our shopping, passed the old church of Saint Sauveur, technically a ruin.

The village has lots of little streets, with pretty houses and flowers.

One of Bridget's purchases was a water gun, with which she cooled off the other females' feet = they all seemed to be feeling the heat.

After a picnic lunch the girls went to the river that runs alongside the campsite...

Luckily no-one rubbed a hole in the bottom of their swimming costumes today...although Rosie's bikini shorts came back rather dirtier than before. We also found it's hard to ride a rubber ring down a river that has a lot of rocks and isn't very deep, Rosie says she may have a rather bruised bottom from bumping it on rocks though.

Leaving Mary in charge of the camp, Meld, Mark and Aid headed back to town for the "folklorique" that is part of the Fete Major of Arles-sur-Tech which is happening this weekend. On the way down we passed yet more exotic fruit on people's gardens - kiwis, passion fruit, grapes...We returned from the river nicely cooled and found the Ethels had left an Ethel behind. We didn't really have anything to do so we all sat down in our book club and read our books, although I was complained at for reading too fast.

The dancing took place with the backdrop of the surrounding hills, in the garden of the Mairie.

They performed a long set of traditional dances from the area

This dance is from the south of Catalonia - Valencia

And concluded with a communal Sardana - the Catalan dance. It has been described as the most boring dance in the world, but that's only to non-dancers who don't look below the knee. The footwork is impressive - not for the uninitiated!