Travel Day 10-3-15

Today we are heading our separate ways, Mel and Mar are headed for Lyon while Deb and I are going to meet our friends Julia and Jose in Arles.  But in order to catch our train we had to drive for an hour down to Cahors and turn in the rental car.  We wanted to be certain to be there early enough to turn in the car and get to the station before our train.  So we started out before sunrise and drove down in the dark.  It was supposed to be rainy most of the day so when the sun was up it was still quite grey because of the clouds.  However it all went like clockwork and we made it in plenty of time to have a coffee and croissants before the train came.
When the train got to the station it turned out to be one of the little "sausage" trains, with 3 small cars but we found a nice set of seats and settled in for the hour long ride to Toulouse.
Once we got to Toulouse it was time to part ways so I helped Mel and Mar with luggage over to their platform while Deb waited for me at the station.  They were off in good order, while we had about a 40 minute wait for our train.  It was sunny and warm when we boarded the train for Arles, but as we came around the gulf it started spitting rain.
By the time we reached Arles it was coming down pretty hard so we hustled into the station where Julia and Jose were waiting.  Then it really started raining, seriously, we got wet loading bags into the car even with an umbrella and by the time I opened the door to get in door handle indent collected about a half inch of water.
We started seeing flooding in the street just as we left the town and in less than a mile the water was close to 8 inches in the street.  A little further and the flooding was bad enough that we had to turn around and take an alternate route that was raised above the surrounding fields that were looking like ponds at that point.

But we got to their house in good order and spent a lovely evening eating a splendid dinner that Julia had prepared.We had a few minutes getting reacquainted with Rani and Sita the cats. Then we sta
rted with a lovely aperitif, Cardhu 12yr single malt, lovely indeed.  Then we got down to serious enjoyment.  Oysters on the half shell, and  smoked salmon for the first plate, followed by an absolutely perfect filet en croute, red and juicy wrapped in a crisp phyllo dough wrapper.  All accompanied with excellent wines.
They had procured some light as air pastries to finish.  Then to top everything thus far they produced a 67 year old bottle of plum brandy.  So Jose and I celebrated with a drink created the year we were both born.  Then it was bed for us all after feasting like kings.