One of our goals on the trip had been to get see the medieval city at Carcassonne. When we picked up the boat and discussed routes, we came to the conclusion that geting that far up river was too ambitious, especially because of the strike which would have essentially stopped us for a day. So we weren't going to make Carcassonne. Caroline had the good idea that if we turned in the boat on Friday mid afternoon instead of 9 AM Saturday, we could get to Carcassonne Friday and have most of Saturday to explore it. Having decided that, and not wanting to go through 5 locks up with the inevitable return trip to see Homps, We decided to take a taxi there. J&J and Caroline took a taxi, Chuck rode the bike--it was 6 km (3.5 mi).
Homps was a pleasant town with the usual interesting church. Many of the churches have what we have heard called a
field cross in the US. This church had a good example of one in front of the church door.
Nearly every little town we have been has a
memorial to the enfants (children) who died in the world wars. It is interesting that in the southern cities along the canal, the ratio of the dead in WWI to those in WWII must be 5 or 6 to 1. In the couple of northern cities we visited, the ratio is more like 2 or 3 to 1. In Homps,
there were 30 young men killed in WWI which must have been most of a generation. The picture (about half of the names) indicates that the Jammes family lost 3 men to the war. The saddest inference is that they were brothers.
After the ladies visited every shop in town (admittedly a very small number), we found the taxi driver's recommendation for lunch. It was a great restaurant and we had a very leisurely 2 hour lunch which
finished with dessert.
A taxi or bike ride brought us back to the boat.
