The Day When Little Went "Right" or "Some Days Are Diamonds"....

Saturday March 1st
...."Some days are stone."

Well, I was off on my next field trip day. I had the bus schedule all set, and I was at the bus stop at 9:20. It is roughly an hour to Perpignan, and then another hour to Amelie-les-Bains, where I thought I could just visit the old Roman baths Sally had told me about. NO! YOU had to wait and pay to USE them. The old Roman baths are now part of this company. http://compagniedesspas.fr/  It did look very nice, as the "guests" who had used the baths were sitting in robes having teas or dressed and reading in the lobby as well as the bath area pictured below.

Lovely ride there-in spite of bus window reflections!

This was what I saw, and it was really only ornamental.

SOMEDAY I will learn to pay better attention! Sally did tell me that they were real baths, etc. But still I thought they would be like the baths in Bath, England, for example!
 Plus I arrived at 11:30, and the baths closed at 12.
So I rushed to get the bus to go a little farther out to Arles-sur-Tech to see Abbaye Sainte-Marie with the abbaye and cloisters, etc. Of course, I knew that would open at 2, but it did not occur to me that there would NO PLACE TO EAT!! Even SPAR, the little grocery store, had closed at 12:30, while I was wandering around looking at all the closed restaurants!! Luckily I had taken a breakfast bar, water, and a banana (never a smart thing for the bottom of the backpack, but I ate it before it became banana bread in the sun on a park bench outside the Baths.)

Entry to the Cloisters...all I saw!

Passed a foundry with strange sculptures; Earth to Arles s/Tec!

By then I was STARVING, and SPAR would not reopen until 3, so I took the bus back to Perpignan to wait 35 minutes for the next hour long bus trip to return to Collioure. (Buses from here to Perpignan run hourly in each direction Monday through Saturday.)

The bus and train stations are nearly connected, so I thought I could go there to buy some train tickets for future field trips. I wanted to pay cash, but there were only machines and by the time I got myself through the process (YEAH, I did that!) I realized that I did not have my credit card, and if I had had it, I could not use it, as it does not have a chip. (I am going to to call to get new card with chip.)

When I came home, I decided, since it had been really a (sort of) "wasted" day, to walk .8 mile to LIDL, a grocery store (of course!). AT LEAST it is a pretty walk along the coast. OH! There is a small stationery store near there, where I went first to buy a 2B pencil, but that had closed at noon! I did give myself "extra credit", because I could have gone to a closer market!

And I thought since it was such a day, I would go out to eat at Café Sola, a sports bar with decent looking meals. AT LEAST there would be lots of people all speaking French! But at 7:00, the kitchen was already closed-only sandwiches and drinks!!

Town square (market setting) opposite pizza stand

So I walked around the corner to get a good veggie pizza made by a pleasant BIG guy, whose pants were sliding down so far I saw more than I needed to. But by that time, my pizza was baking. While it was lukewarm by the time I got home, it was still  very tasty  with lots of veggies on it, including artichokes!!

Diamond or stone? I saw a lot, although not what I had thought I would see! But I am optimistic that my next outing will be more fulfilled....see you then!