 |
Local
Tourist Board: (click)
Nearby antique markets and vide-greniers
Distances:
Réal
is 50 kilometres, 40 minutes drive, from Toulouse Blagnac
Airport and the town itself.
Carcassonne airport is 90 minutes drive. We are 960 kilometres
or nine hours drive, nearly all on autoroutes, from the Channel
tunnel at Calais.
Réal
is approximately five kilometres from three interesting
old market towns,
St Sulpice
to the South, Rabastens to the East and Bessières
to the West. Each also has a supermarket. A tour of the three
most
famous medieval bastide villages, Cordes, Castelnau and Puycelsi,
stopping for lunch, takes about four hours. Albi 40 minutes & Toulouse
35 minutes are the nearest big towns.
Distances fromRabastens,
our nearest town, : Paris 690 km, Lyon 470 km, Marseille
400
km, Bordeaux 270
km, Toulouse 37 km & Albi 36 km by the autoroute A
68, Montauban 50 km, Castres 55 km, Lavaur 18 km, Gaillac
18
km.
Coast /beach
Both the Mediterranean
at Narbonne and Sete, and the Atlantic on the coast north
of Biarritz,
are a two to three hours drive away
Public Holidays
Remember that most shops, museums and other public buildings
and banks are closed on Monday and generally on the following
public holidays: 1 January, 1 May (Labour Day), 8 May (Victory
in Europe Day), Ascension Thursday, Whit Monday, 14 July
(Bastille Day), 15 August (Assumption Day), 1 November
(All Saints Day), 11 November (Armistice Day), 25 December.
Always check beforehand if you are planning a visit.
|
|
|
The Region
Things to do and see in The Tarn and
the Midi-Pyrenees region
Golf: The area is renowned for its excellent
golf courses and there are several close by, including the
celebrated Palmola, home of the French youth champions, LasBordes
at Albi, and Florentin, in the northern Gaillac wine country
where you can lose your ball among the vines by the side
of the rough.
Roquemaure is well situated for a tour of
the region's hilltop bastide villages, built for defence
during the 100 years war between the French and English.
A drive around the four principal nearest, Castelnau, Cordes,
Puycelsi and Larroque, including a stop for lunch, takes
about five to six hours and makes a great day out.
mediaeval-Bruniquel is an easy drive.
During the summer there are many annual
brocantes and flea markets in villages all over the Tarn.
Full up-to-date details of these are to be found in the apartment
or at www.vide-greniers.org,
which lists every brocante or vide-grenier within reach of
the house and tells you when it opens, and how far away it
is from the house!
A days outing could be made to Albi, site
of the 13th Century heresy, or to Carcassonne, the medieval
walled city 90 mins to the South-East, or to Toulouse, the
fourth largest city in France. Toulouse, “The Pink
City”, just 30 minutes drive away, is one of France’s
most modern cities and also, as the city that ruled most
of southern France for many centuries, has an abundance of
historic buildings, squares and streets.
Albi, the Tarn capital, and birthplace of
Toulouse-Lautrec, was the site of the infamous "Albigensian
Heresy" in the 13th Century, and its huge red brick
cathedral (God’s aircraft carrier, they call it) stands
as a reminder of that era. This blend of history and modern
France is 40 minutes away across the Gaillac wine country.
For the children and the agile there are
many theme parks in the area. Fishing and canoeing are to
be enjoyed here on the Tarn and Aveyron rivers. Windsurfing,
sailing and other still water activities are on the many
large lakes in the area. Full details of all these pastimes
and many others can be found in the apartment booklet and
local tourist literature.
|
Réal and Roquemaure
| Fifty years ago, the mayor told us recently, there
were forty separate farms in our commune. Now, the combination
of modern equipment and family changes has meant that
this number has dropped to 16. Many of the old farmhouses
have been abandoned, their lands absorbed by their neighbours.
The owners and their heirs have left the land for life
in the nearby towns and villages, preferring a modern
house and nice central heating to a draughty unmodernised
old stone or brick farm. The church and then the school
became disused, and their services were also merged with
those of the neighbouring hamlets. |
| But with Toulouse and its thriving industry only 35
minutes away, and the A61 Autoroute between Toulouse
and Albi only fifteen minutes from the village, people,
especially young couples, are moving back to the community,
building cottages in areas set aside for new development.
Slowly, our commune, while still quiet and comparatively
remote, has started to return to the population size
it was perhaps fifty years ago. |
| When our first restoration works
were underway ten years ago, we were discussing with
the master builder M. Ubaldi, the fact that it only
seems to be the English who are prepared to spend the
time and money to restore what the French call their “Patrimoine”.
What did he think of all these foreigners buying up
the patrimoine and restoring it? “We welcome
the work”, M. Ubaldi said, “and besides,
we much prefer you English to the Parisians” |
|
|
