At home and abroad

I love to travel, in part, because it reminds me how unsophisticated I am about weather. Living in San Diego for as long as I have has dulled my weather wits; made me stupid about preparing for what’s to come. Most of San Diego’s weather ranges from glorious to blah (in cloudy May and June), but it’s all good enough you don’t have to plan your activities around it. Stormy weather rolls in only rarely, but when it does, it’s usually relentless and intense. It can last for days. You cancel outdoor plans.

When I’m in a foreign country and my phone’s weather app shows rain in the upcoming days, I tend to freak out. I assume the rain will screw up my plans. I’m often pleasantly surprised.

Weather didn’t impact the three days we had in Paris. They were archetypally perfect: cool in the early morning with heat building to San Diego levels of balminess by late afternoon, all under powder blue skies adorned with puffy passing clouds.But rain was forecast for Bordeaux on Friday, with heat moving in on the weekend and building to scary sounding levels Monday and Tuesday.

When our train pulled into the Bordeaux rail station early Friday afternoon, Olivia, Steve and I dodged light raindrops on our way to collect our rental car. These soon dried up, however, and by the time we dropped Olivia off at her hotel, the sun was out and the center of the old city felt pleasant and looked splendid. I’d arranged a home-exchange house in the country, very close to where Annabelle’s wedding reception would be held Saturday evening. We found it and settled into those comfortable quarters, then drove to dinner in the little town of Fargues St. Hilaire about 10 minutes away. By the time we arrived at 7:30, a torrential deluge had begun, intense enough to get us very wet as we dashed (under an umbrella) from our car the short distance to the restaurant. After we finished dinner, the downpour had stopped.

Nothing marred the perfection of Annabelle’s wedding the next day, held at 3 pm in a 1000-year-old basilica in the center of Bordeaux.It was sunny and quite warm outside, but all that stone kept out the heat.

By the time we emerged from the church around 4:30, the heat still wasn’t overbearing.

Over the next three days the temperature forecasts for Bordeaux looked worse and worse: around 90 on Sunday. Maybe 95 Monday, and I think I saw 97 at one point predicted for Tuesday. What surprised me, though, was how much of each of those days was lovely: cool and pleasant throughout the morning.

Sunday we weren’t uncomfortable at the wedding brunch on the back lawn of the chateau.

It’s possible the amazing setting distracted us.

Monday morning (after Olivia had returned to Paris), Steve and I made the 40-minute drive to St. Emilion, an important wine-making center. The ancient town and its vistas are almost indescribably charming, and we walked and lunched outdoors and felt cool until mid-afternoon, when the heat finally began to be oppressive.For our last full day in Bordeaux (yesterday), we returned to the center for more walking, another lunch, and a visit to the city’s wine museum. The pattern repeated: weather interchangeable with San Diego’s at its best in the morning, only heating up enough to sap our energy late in the day.

This morning (Wednesday) we packed up our rented Ford and headed for the first stop on our grand tour of Europe’s seven smallest countries: Andorra. As we drove south, my phone’s forecast looked like this, disconcerting to anyone bound for the rugged Pyrenees for a two-night stay. At one point, we drove under repeated signs warning about the thunderstorms ahead.

But after a few sprinkles in the early morning, the clouds disappeared, and by the time we whizzed through the border (with not a customs or passport or Covid vaccine checker anywhere in sight), Andorra’s Pyrenean splendors could not have looked more stunning had a professional postcard photo producer arranged the scenes.

I’m writing these words in our hotel room in Andorra la Vella (the compact capital city). I’ve heard a few distant rumbles out our window, but no rain is pouring yet. The forecast still looks so bad I can’t imagine we’ll be able to hike most of tomorrow, as I had planned. But I’m wising up; amping up my reserves of flexibility. I think I need them at least as much as my umbrella.