The First Europe Trip

As our luggage stuttered across the cobbled road behind us, we approached a gigantic building that looked as film noir as a Venetian blind’s shadow. Scenes flurried in my head of parting lovers. The Gare de Lyon is a beautiful place.

Venturing inside, we were confronted by a giant white beast of technology resting ominously on the tracks, snarling and hissing with bursts of pressured sounds. We entered the machine and found our seats, poised in anticipation.

With a blast from the horn, the Gare de Lyon began to move out of our way. Our destination was Rodes, about twenty five kilometres West of Perpignan in the Pyrenees Mountains, South France.

We drank it all in: Mountains to our right; Mediterranean Sea to our left; my beautiful wife in front; all whilst traveling at 320 kilometres an hour.

The journey took five hours, but we pierced the town of Perpignan with what seemed like the same breath that we inhaled in Paris.

Many months before, we’d arranged to collect a car in Perpignan to finish our journey, and on disembarking were relieved to find a small Peugeot waiting for us in the parking lot. We dumped our bags in the back and jumped in, but many years of developed driving muscle memory were instantly wiped as I realized this car was left hand drive. Undeterred, I convinced myself I could do this.

Twenty minutes later, with a windscreen filled with a mountain range, we turned off the highway and into a small, terracotta town surrounded by mountains with church bells that awoke dormant, internal rhythms. We were at Rodes, and set out on foot to explore.

There were cobbled paths and meandering, narrow roads, all flanked by old stone buildings. Each door was painted a different, bright colour. The year could have been the present, or just as easily four hundred years in the past.

We saw a small road that looked even older than the others. There, halfway up the alley were many cats. I counted about twenty, all hanging out like a large jazz band. Though the small town had been built by humans, these animals owned it. I realized I envied them and their life of sleeping on clay tiles, warming themselves like photovoltaic cells recharging in the sun. I imagined a small part of the collection, churning and making cheese, while others fermented wines and the rest painted.

I loved the presence of forty small orange eyes studying me, wondering if this human would bend to their will – these Alley Cats of Rodes.