A sunny, cool and breezy morning.

We thought it a good day to drive to Collioure, on the coast of the Mediterranean near the Spanish border, to sample the anchovies for which the town is famous.

Everything went according to plan until we came down out of the hilly, semi-arid and sparsely populated interior, on to the coastal plain just north of the town. There we discovered that Collioure is not only known for anchovies, but is also a popular summer seaside resort. Before we could find a place to turn back, we found ourselves locked in a slowly moving ensemble of other cars, of bicycles, tricycles, joy-ride trains and, mainly, humans—thousands of humans in sunglasses as their principal item of attire, humans collectively displaying acres of brown oil-basted flesh glistening as it baked in the hot sun.

We discovered eventually how to turn about in the throng—very slowly. The assorted vehicles and people parted before us like water at the bow of a ship, and we were soon on N114 headed for:

Place Général de Gaulle, Thuir

We entered the restaurant by way of a sun-dappled terrace whose coolness was refreshing in the noonday heat. The cool, bright interior was decorated in a vaguely Spanish style, with many polished wood features such as lattices and newel knobs.

Salade frisée: Good curly endive with indifferent lardons, drenched in an unremarkable vinaigrette.

Anchoïde de Collioure: Several tender, fresh and briny anchovy filets served with strips of roasted red peppers in a lattice design.

Though we had not managed to penetrate the town, we felt satisfied that in this dish we had experienced the best Collioure had to offer.

Escalope de saumon ciboulette: An fine filet of salmon served with tomato, ratatouille, and steamed potatoes on a white sauce green-flecked and lightly flavored with chives.

Ris de jeune bétail aux morilles: Flavorful, unusually dark-colored médallions of sweetbreads served with fabulously tasty morel mushrooms and the same vegetables as the salmon. The sauce with this dish was dark in color and of medium intensity.

On the above evidence, the sweetbread of jeune bétail (young cattle) is darker in color, harder in texture and more strongly flavored than that of veau (calf). Obviously, we need to do further research to resolve this question.

Délice de Roussillon: Apricot sorbet with an apricot eau- de-vie.

Nougat glacé was served with strawberry coulis and—a strangely amateurish touch—with sliced banana.

***

We stopped on the way back to Padern to pick up some Cavaillon melons, being sure to select some with an intense perfume.

After dining on steamed vegetables and cous cous accompanied by Cuvée du Curé de Cucugnan, we took an evening stroll along the Verdouble on the bank opposite the residential area of the village. We saw that much of this flat, low-lying land was given over to an extensive garden, a patchwork of individual plots devoted mainly to vegetables, though some flowers were growing there as well.

Along the way we chatted with a spare, elderly man out on his own evening stroll, a refugee from the Moroccan war we think he said (he spoke very hard-to-understand French) who filled us in on the major event in the recent history of Padern—the flood of 1940. As he spoke we glanced across the river to the low cliff on the opposite bank, the stone wall along the cliff top and behind it the old houses that were flooded as he described. We ventured that the area where we were standing, being relatively low-lying, must have been still more deeply under water. No doubt the gardens were ruined? No, he insisted with evident impatience at our misconception, that was not the case. The garden area was not flooded at all.

How did it happen that when the higher bank was flooded, the lower remained dry? The Moroccan was not in a mood to explain what he evidently saw as obvious, so we parted with the enigma unresolved.