Garden paradise

My 10th visit to France, one of the rare where I didn’t go to Paris, one that was 800 km south from it and only 2 hours away from the Spanish border.
I knew I was going to the countryside and I was daydreaming of seeing vineyards or fields of lavender or sunflowers – what else is there really to the rural France?
I took a plane from Venice to Toulouse and then train to Cazères where a member of the organisation of the project was supposed to pick us up and take us to Bédeille, a small village about 30 min of car ride away. It was a sunny day and the train was almost full of only French people; we were not in a very touristy part of France. In the parking lot next to the Cazères train station the van was already waiting for us, a group of youngsters from different European countries. We put our backpacks in the trunk and took off to Bédeille. Driving through the town, I already felt the “French” atmosphere those middle-sized towns have – people sitting in caffés, exiting boulangeries with baguettes under their arms… a relaxed, chilled out sort of atmosphere. Then it began our road through the forest. First, the beautiful tree alley like a portal to the other kind of the road – narrow and meandering. We were all watching through the windows, looking at the trees, the fields and the mountains in the distance. “There are the Pyrenees,” the driver said. “On the other side of them, it’s Spain.”
Finally, we arrived to the village were the 10-day project would take place. We were staying at an old farm that the organisation tried their best to make functional. The cosy effect of the inside of the house overwhelmed us – we already felt at home. The scenery behind the house was breath-taking. The view at the endless forests and hills and fields that changed color during the day was even more magical in the early hours of summer sunrises and late sunsets – the simple beauty of nature made us feel like we were in a special place and filled us with peace and happiness. For ten days we were not in France, we were not in Europe, we were in a paradise, a garden.
The last day, the organizers took as again through the forest to the station in Cazères from where we would go by train back to the Toulouse airport. Exhausted after so many goodbies, I sat at the airport, watching other people waiting for their planes, and thinking about everything that happened during those last days and everybody I met. And I thought: “I am not going home, I am leaving it.”