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Post by lugg on Oct 19, 2016 18:26:05 GMT
I maybe should have split this report into several but here goes. Well no poem within this report, but I do hope to portray some of my love for this part of France. I last visited about 15 years ago to spend time with my Mum who was staying here with some friends, who were helping her to come to terms with my Dad’s death the year before. Sadly it was the last holiday I shared with her because she became ill and died a few months later. ….. But what a time we had…The friends of my parents had a house in the Razes and my parents had visited them many times in the preceding years, often spending the summer. I had been lucky enough to have joined them occasionally for a few days and had fallen in love with the area. I remember thinking in the past that Aude is similar in many ways to my home county but with better weather. We even have the same name for the mountains that border the respective areas – Black Mountains in Herefordshire and Montagne Noir in Aude. However, of course our Herefordshire crops are apples and hops rather than grapes. The rurality of the department appeals to me, as does its proximity to both coast and mountains. Of course there is much more; ancient castles, medieval villages, the Canal de Midi, high plateaus and rolling hills and Carcassonne itself. Time passed by and my parent’s friends decided to sell their home as they got older to live in the UK full time. I had always hoped to go back some time, but life being the curved ball that it is, I had not anticipated that a future personal connection (or 3) would be part of my return. Moving on a few years ….. I had an opportunity to re-visit this October to meet up with friends and “almost -family. “ My mother’s best friend moved here , at the ripe old age of 81!!( Her son and wife had moved to the area to open a B&B a few years before) and, co-incidentally, an old friend of mine had also bought a house in the department and asked my sister and I to join her and some other friends on a visit. My friends and I first met about 40 years ago when we all started our nurse training together. So lots of laughs, lots of sight- seeing, plus good eating and drinking; which made for a great long weekend –well a bit more my sister and I stayed for 6 days in total. . I have no idea how this thread will turn out, but I’m just going to post pics and text in a chronological order and hope the end result is ok. Here is a map of the Aude Days 1 -3Arrived at Carcassonne airport and picked up our hire car. What a joy this airport is; small , efficient and a short walk to the car hire centre and then straightforward access onto easy roads. The guy at the car hire desk asked us if we wanted / could cope with an automatic – in hindsight saying yes was a great decision. He up -graded us to a bigger car no need to worry about gears as we drove on the WRONG side of the road was an added bonus We left Carcassonne and headed to our first base for the next 3 nights – Quillan which is where my friend has a house. Stopped in Limoux to stock up the kitchen and buy (of course) several bottles of Blanquette de Limoux. This is my favourite sparkling wine and is rarely available on the shelves of UK shops and if so, always costs more than in France. (4/5 pounds for good quality versus 12 pounds plus.) For those that don’t know about Blanquette , it’s the oldest sparkling wine in the world ( or at least in France) www.domaine-rosier.com/en/history-of-sparkling-wine.phpArriving at the apartment we found we had received yet another up-grade to a huge apartment with more beds than we needed but the added bonus of two bathrooms – so one each – perfect.. It was situated right in the centre of Quillan, above Café de Fleuve which was in a square with plane trees and a few bars and restaurants – perfect . A hefty climb up from our first floor apartment but the views from the top floor terrace were special, the mountains are the foothills of the Pyrenees. A glimpse of the Aude I would describe Quillan as a small market town , now with little evidence of industry although my friend told me that once there was a formica factory and before that the main industry was hat making. Now the town is trying to increase tourism, capitalising on the Aude ( White Water rafting) the mountains and the Cathar castles within easy reach. Here is some more info about Quillan. www.aci-agence.com/century21_aciv3f_20022016_2325_wide__019.htmwww.quillan.fr/English/Pages/84_History-of-Quillan.html
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Post by lugg on Oct 19, 2016 18:44:51 GMT
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Post by lugg on Oct 19, 2016 18:50:51 GMT
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Post by lugg on Oct 19, 2016 18:54:15 GMT
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Post by lugg on Oct 19, 2016 18:56:47 GMT
Well I am not sure how that last section got posted but am very happy that my computer took the posting into its own hands ::)Well apart from the huge size of photos - apologies I am still trying to get to grips with my new photo hosting site.
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Post by fumobici on Oct 19, 2016 19:25:56 GMT
They look fine to me. What a wonderful area! The markets look very very nice, the towns likewise and that never-taken castle is quite the marvel.
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Post by lugg on Oct 19, 2016 20:16:27 GMT
Thank you Fumobici for your feedback.
I guess I will have to work on the sizing for the next thread that I post . I have already saved this thread and to change all the photo sizing would just take too long . I've tried it with the first few of the next part of my report as an experiment to see if the reduced size works out.
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Post by htmb on Oct 19, 2016 20:29:10 GMT
Oh, Lugg!!! This is marvelous and will require many different passes through your photos to take it all in. When I first saw your post I had a quick flash of total envy!
I spent a week in this area in 2008, and remember exchanges you and I had a few years later when I posted some of the photos. Thank you for the great start: super narrative and very interesting photos. What a treat for us.
I am so looking forward to seeing more of your report.
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Post by mossie on Oct 19, 2016 20:43:45 GMT
JEALOUS.
A lovely part of the world, lucky you, but many thanks for showing us, and playing the mountain goat. I would never have made it up those steps, let alone getting that far.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 19, 2016 22:33:52 GMT
Oh gosh yes ~ I too am green as can be!
Lugg, this is a WONDERFUL report. I love how sequential it is and your captions make everything clear. Absolutely fabulous photos of details, grand vistas, interiors, etc. etc. etc.
I especially thank you for the satisfying number and quality of the views from the ruin. It wasn't until last year that I discovered how much I like being up high in fortifications, possibly indulging some vague karmic memory. Your pictures really bring home that pleasure.
The town is so pretty, but I confess I think it's a shame it will be given over to whitewater rafting, with the attendant shrieking, the lines over the river and so on. Still, needs must I suppose.
The market is fascinating, although I'm stunned you didn't get the spinning wheel -- so useful!
Your photo sizes look great on my little 15.6" laptop. I was using smaller pictures sizes as dictated by our previous version of the forum format. However in one of Fumobici's threads he used great big pictures and not only got away with it, but they just looked so good. I guess V5 allows that, and I now use what seems to be the same size as yours in this thread (@ 1024x683 + or -).
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Post by fumobici on Oct 20, 2016 2:16:45 GMT
I want to be in these little towns. Even though they are a long way from Italy, they remind me so much more of Italian towns I love around the same size than the towns that size in northern France. There's a southern European thing that spans borders that I love. These people know how to live I tell you.
I switched from posting 800 px images to 1024 px here some time back. People's monitors are larger and HD now, or at least higher resolution, so the browsers can handle 1024 just fine now and they really do look clearer. My dinky little 13.3" laptop even has a 3000+ px display on it!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2016 4:52:41 GMT
Thanks for this great report, lugg. The Aude is indeed one of the most picturesque areas in France. I used to be much more familiar with the area, because my parents lived in Béziers for a couple of years long ago, and I went wandering with them quite a bit when I would visit them on holiday. Some people consider the area almost "too" touristy in the height of the summer season, but then again so is Paris, and there is a reason for that -- sheer beauty -- and many people appreciate the warmer weather.
Your coverage of the town markets is sensational, and that continues to be one of the strong points of the region. The selection of homemade soups is very impressive, and I can imagine the locals coming back with their carefully washed bottles every week. Ecology in action!
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Post by lugg on Oct 20, 2016 6:09:43 GMT
Thanks all for the feedback- ok wont worry too much about the photo size then Of course Bixa , Htmb and ? K2 were in the Aude as well earlier this year but unfortunately we did not get to visit Narbonne - maybe next time for us.? Mossie, I was not so much a mountain goat but took it slow and steady and I managed it even with my dodgy knee. More to come tonight from a really touristy area- Carcassonne.
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Post by lugg on Oct 20, 2016 18:28:47 GMT
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Post by lugg on Oct 20, 2016 18:45:50 GMT
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Post by lugg on Oct 20, 2016 18:55:56 GMT
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Post by lugg on Oct 20, 2016 19:12:45 GMT
This next stop was really not planned – we knew nothing about the village or what we would find there, but our Michelin map highlighted that it was a beautiful road to travel on, so off we set – destination being Villerouge-Termenes Arriving we discovered we had stumbled upon a “Cathar” Castle with VERY easy access and one that had been restored to help give visitors an understanding of how it looked centuries earlier. This photo of the map in the village helps locate it – essentially Carcassonne is out of sight just at top left of the map and Puilaurens castle is just about visible (Lapradelle) at the very bottom left. Our final stop of the day is to the left of Lagrasse – St Laurent de la Cabrerisse. We walked downhill! to the castle The renovation which is not clear from a distance becomes slightly more apparent, These houses are within the circular enclave surrounding the castle Arriving at the entrance, Inside we were able to get an English audio guide to help us understand more about the castle and the story of Belibaste – I think we paid about 6 euros for the entrance and hire of the equipment. The village is closely linked to the decline of the Cathar church: in 1321, Guilhem Bélibaste, the last known Occitan Cathar perfectus, was burnt alive at Villerouge-Termenès. Guilhem Bélibaste had been initiated into Catharism, and became a perfectus while in hiding in Catalonia. As only perfectii could transmit the religion, by a ceremony of laying on of hands, his death meant the end of the Cathar religion. So let’s look at the inside - An impression of how the village would have been in the 1300’s I have to confess that I am the gooseberry in the middle, and from the ramparts,
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Post by lugg on Oct 20, 2016 19:30:19 GMT
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Post by fumobici on Oct 20, 2016 20:08:25 GMT
Beautiful, thank you.
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Post by htmb on Oct 20, 2016 22:53:56 GMT
Marvelous! It looks like a wonderful trip, Lugg.
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Post by mich64 on Oct 20, 2016 23:16:37 GMT
Serene, lovely report Lugg. Your photos are beautiful. How wonderful that in October you could spend an afternoon enjoying a swim in the pool and hot tub.
It is known how much I love markets so thank you for adding those photos! I would have enjoyed spending time looking through all those baskets looking for little treasures to bring home.
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Post by bixaorellana on Oct 21, 2016 0:44:34 GMT
So much beauty so gloriously captured!
This is my third pass through the second section and each time I enjoyed it more and more and found more to take in. Htmb & I dithered & ultimately decided to bypass Carcassone for a variety of good reasons, but not without regret, so I was keenly interested in your visit there. You covered it so well and I love that your last glance back served up that magical scene. But really, the next stops are easily as fascinating as the big famous one. Your water pictures are just wonderful and your shots of lovely nooks, kitty cats, and delicious food add so much to the whole picture. This is a super, more than delightful travelogue -- thank you so much.
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Post by tod2 on Oct 21, 2016 15:45:36 GMT
Lugg, you have done an absolutely splendid job on this photo-essay! I am so glad I went on that tour to South-West France last year because the tour took in Carcassonne and your photos brought a lot of it alive for me. I remember your hotel - we had to walk past it on the road back to our tour bus parking. Looking at your photo above the wording "Not to be sniffed at lunch" I wondered if you knew the low entrance you can see some people coming out of, are the public toilets. Your photos of the sunsets are truly magnificent - well done on the whole essay! Homps: This is where Rick Stein discusses the Cathars with a South African author who lives in Homps. Sorry can't remember his full name - only Christopher ?
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Post by htmb on Oct 21, 2016 19:25:09 GMT
Lugg, you took some very nice photos, even without your "good" camera. The Carcassonne pictures are especially super and I really like the one of the cat framed within a window. Thank you for this lovely report. It provides much food for thought. I had an opportunity to visit a Cathar castle up on a hilltop like the first one you photographed. I've never been sorry I passed on that little side trip.
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Post by breeze on Oct 22, 2016 1:19:44 GMT
Lugg, you put everything into a trip report that I like to see--lots of buildings, architectural details, flowers, food, market stalls and shoppers, vistas, sun and shade, rivers, and a few cats. Adding pictures of the places where you stayed is a major plus. I really appreciate it, even though I'll probably never go back to that area. But if so, I will keep the Villa Celine in mind because it looks like an ideal place to stay. Thanks for your report.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 22, 2016 6:40:13 GMT
I find this report completely glorious, and one of the strong points is to compare a tourist site like Carcassonne to the 'ordinary' villages of the area, which is not always to the advantage of Carcassonne. However, it is a completely symbiotic relationship -- the villages could not survive if there were not places like Carcassonne to bring visitors, and Carcassonne could not surivive if it were all by itself with no other places of interest like the picturesque villages with their markets and fabulous little restaurants that don't even know they are fabulous.
Even for people from the 'other side' of the road, driving through the region is a treat, and people who do not have this freedom are missing a lot. These little villages often have bus service just twice a day for working people and often not at all on the weekend. This probably helps preserve them from the masses that might arrive if access were made too easy. Even so, during the main season you will sometimes see one of these villages suddenly overrun by the contents of one or two tour buses. That isn't necessarily negative, since the villagers are quite proud of where they live and are also motivated to keep things a lot tidier (and flowered) than they used to be. I still remember the days when you would almost be guaranteed of seeing the local dump just past the sign indicating that you were leaving the village. (We can thank the EU for making open air dumps illegal.) Another excellent evolution is the gradual disappearance of electrical and telephone lines strung through the streets. This will never be 100% complete particularly since it isn't practical everywhere, but anybody who takes a lot of pictures knows very well how hanging wires can spoil lots of pictures that would otherwise be perfect. In normal life, our eyes tend to filter out the lines most of the time, but our digital cameras do not yet have this capability (even though it probably isn't far off). Anyway, even though they always start burying the wires in the historical areas before other places, everybody benefits in the end because there are almost never any power outages due to storms once it is done.
Another thing that drew my eye were the lovely little shallow rivers running through some of these towns. They look so harmless, but anybody living in a place with a similar climate (California, Australia...) knows that they can become ferocious monsters after a couple of days of heavy rain. Not quite in the same area but identical in configuration, the town of Vaison-la-Romaine left a permanent impression on France in 1992. Of course, one of the advantages of such a tragedy is the tightening of safety rules -- you can no longer have a campground down at (low) water level these days.
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Post by lugg on Oct 23, 2016 10:31:25 GMT
Thank you all for your encouraging comments.
Tod - Re Rick Stein - I googled and found that was in Rick Stein's French Odyssey - I did not see that but if I get chance I may well watch it now. Thank you. K2 I remember watching that terrible flooding on the news. I know that Quillan has flooded in the past and recently an new alarm system ( complete with wiring ) has been installed - I think this is for any warning not just flood eg also for fire. The new wiring was strung across the upper external part of my friend's house and the house next door which is how I came to know about it. As you say I would highly recommend hiring a car in this area if you want to explore fully ; although there are cheap buses and trains to Carcassonne from the main towns ,( ie 1 euro bus Quillan to Carcassonne) Another reason why the area reminds me of my home; some Herefordshire villages only have 2 buses once a week on a Wednesday, which was the traditional market day so one to the market and one back. This is still the case even though the cattle market moved out of the town centre a few years ago.
Anyway I will definitely return next year - maybe get to see Narbonne and that area next time.
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Post by lugg on Apr 17, 2020 12:03:28 GMT
Well having lots of time on my hands I thought I would update this report with a subsequent visit to the Aude back in 2018. I will try not to be repetitive as we did once again visit some of the places we had been before. As ever I travelled with my sister, met up with friends in Quillan for a couple of days, and ended with a visit to our god mother Saint-Laurent-de-la-Cabrerisse. In between we saw some new places. I am not sure how this report will go as I am writing it 18 months after the event but hoping as I work through my photos this will guide me. This time , our apartment in an medieval house right in the centre of Quillan was not as spacious as before but was very pretty and sat right on the banks of the Aude – ( mixed blessings but more about that later) This was the view from the balcony at the back of the apartment live.staticflickr.com/65535/49768318163_c7af3aef86_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49769176627_fb09d17f04_b.jpgAnd from the front live.staticflickr.com/65535/49769051096_e0e07f4d55_b.jpgDirectly opposite above the café was our previous apartment. live.staticflickr.com/65535/49768853031_6cab0ae942_b.jpgAnyway we did all the usual stuff, drinking, eating, laughing, walking around Quillan itself and visiting various villages in the area live.staticflickr.com/65535/49769308847_25e0ca05c5_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49769354052_c1dc84822c_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49769030536_2661287d08_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49769358117_822606ea79_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768501733_8d7daf8d87_b.jpgTime to focus on somewhere we had not been before; Rennes Le Chateau, a very pretty village famous for its priest Bérenger Saunière and his legacy. It’s a pretty convoluted tale, (further confused by Dan Brown) that I have struggled to make sense of but this article puts it in a nut shell. www.theguardian.com/world/shortcuts/2018/jan/08/tiny-french-village-treasure-hunters-rennes-le-chateau#maincontentlive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768316233_ce6275110d_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768315428_a793aec33e_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768314978_93a38fc99b_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49769173342_47943d89a6_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768849561_dc4bb56221_b.jpgAnyway no-one can dispute the stunning views across the Aude, to the Cevennes and the Pyrenees. live.staticflickr.com/65535/49769172732_4955b26104_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768313973_5f1c1b341b_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49769172082_6aa7fdf4c5_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49769170302_87163dec3f_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768506108_ca4def0daf_b.jpgPerfect weather for us all to enjoy a picnic together. As I write this in these Covid 19 days it makes me so appreciate the freedom to travel, to socialise without worries. live.staticflickr.com/65535/49769171577_868c7628f4_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768515308_a62acf25b9_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49769171787_2247fc223f_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768312513_54b3d882e3_b.jpgTime for a wander down to and around the church of Saint Mary Magdalene which is a very pretty church inside and out. live.staticflickr.com/65535/49768309663_630e841d0e_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768846081_244001b5d4_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768310373_f793b9cb12_b.jpgTerribilis est locus iste at the top of the front entrance door. This translates to mean: “This is a place of awe”. Other inscriptions are, “This is God’s house, the gate of heaven, and it shall be called the royal court of God.” live.staticflickr.com/65535/49768309253_92b40307da_b.jpgBut what’s this – vandalism? Yes the winged devil at the entrance of the church, Asmodeus was destroyed / decapitated in 2017. But why? Well the information in the church does not explain it at all. But I found various articles and it seems that this was a protest by a Syrian woman raging against the war in her homeland. Although she had an axe she did not harm any people just Asmodeus and some other parts of the church including the image of Mary Magdalene at the altar. live.staticflickr.com/65535/49768844746_edf6470f8f_b.jpgAnyway a few not very good photos of the inside. I could not use a flash and my little pocket camera could not cope but I hope they give a sense of the interior. Rather grand for a village church leading back to the question of where Sauniere got his money for the renovations. live.staticflickr.com/65535/49769167227_2888b1e757_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49769166667_fd93178c06_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49769166337_3a74b8e9a9_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49769365622_71fcbdbe16_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768841911_3afc5a1aef_b.jpgSo the mixed blessings of the apartment – no photos, the night before we left there was a huge storm. I got up in the morning to use the loo and it was still dark. Did what I needed to do and flushed – looked down to see a swirling black mass – thought wtf!!! – turned light on just as Roland the Rat stopped swirling and lifted his head up over the rim. Thank god it did not bite my bum! So after a lovely few days my sis and I headed to our next port of call, Narbonne, stopping at Rennes les Bains on the way. The river that flows through the town is the Sals and apparently this is because the water is salty. The village was built around thermal springs and has existed in one form or another at least to Roman times and probably earlier. There is a modern thermal bathing pool which we did not visit but we enjoyed the walk along the river and saw some people bathing in natural thermal pools just have they have done for many years. Gorgeous scenery as ever on the way there, live.staticflickr.com/65535/49768976856_d4f35dd177_b.jpgWe parked just outside the village and walked in along the river. The storm had cleared and again it was another lovely day, perfect October weather really. live.staticflickr.com/65535/49768450448_23a1fd7087_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768450158_503490b1e8_b.jpgSome of the ancient bathing pools can be seen at this point live.staticflickr.com/65535/49768982676_f31b711f11_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768979106_f4c075f4da_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768444043_6cd4062155_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49769305292_0ea7c1be08_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49769304382_ff4e1490e9_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768446718_039d55e6a5_b.jpglive.staticflickr.com/65535/49768445228_63dc4f8b7a_b.jpgThe water was not apparently too salty as fish could live in it quite happily live.staticflickr.com/65535/49769301342_f79eb26c27_b.jpgAfter a nice walk to break the journey and fortified with a coffee we set off again towards Narbonne. More to follow.
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Post by mickthecactus on Apr 17, 2020 12:58:33 GMT
Good report lugg with excellent pictures. Thanks!
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Post by fumobici on Apr 17, 2020 14:08:29 GMT
Smashing update! Looks like a lovely area to explore. I really miss these travel diaries.
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