23rd May - Amsterdam to Ceret

We got ourselves organised in the morning in good time to catch the train to the airport at 9.30am. The plan was to enjoy a relaxed coffee together when we arrived before going our separate ways. However,  in the end we only had about 15 minutes because it looked as though we'd be having to go through separate security screening in separate terminals. It was with great reluctance that we said our goodbyes. It had been a fabulous few days together, with plenty of time spent just chilling and chatting. We all very much enjoyed it. The great news is that Alastair and Sophie are planning to come out to NZ for two weeks over the Xmas period, so it won't be too long before we see them again.

So John and I jumped on our flight back to Toulouse and A&S flew out to Pisa soon afterwards. They will be spending the next 4 days in a small town near the Cinque Terre to attend a wedding. Sophie is the one and only bridesmaid. After that they will have one day and night in Venice and then fly home to San Francisco.

Our 1.5 hour flight to Toulouse went quickly, but I found the landing a little disconcertingly hard. It was an easy mission to pick up the car from the hotel and start the drive home. The highway took us past the famed walled town of Carcassonne.

Carcassonne

We didn't plan to stop and have a look because we wanted to get to the second-hand car dealers yard just south of Perpignan as soon as possible. The guy at this car yard had signalled he would buy our car, however last time we'd called in it appeared that it might have gone into receivership. Alas, the gates were still locked and no-one was about. We tried the phone number but it seemed to have been disconnected. It looked as though this option to sell the car had definitely fallen through. 

We continued the drive home, stocked up on some groceries at Lidl supermarket and parked up in our carpark, hopefully for the last time. We will advertise the car on the French version of TradeMe - Le Bon Coin - and see how that goes.

It was nice to be home. We had wondered about doing a last 2-day trip to the Costa Brava next week, but to be honest we both feel as though we've just had a wonderful trip away and don't feel as though we need to try and pack in more. With just two weeks to go, it will be nice to take it fairly quietly and say our goodbyes to everyone.