As I’ve written here, this trip to the south of France has been my first time in this part of the country. In the past my wanderings have stayed generally north of this red line:

From my first moments in the region, though, something seemed so very not foreign. It was as if I’d been here before.

Then it hit me. I pretty much had been here before! If those “separated at birth” pictures could apply to places, then this little corner of the Languedoc could easily be matched up, shrub by shrub and rock by rock, with the Texas Hill Country. (Churchill High School classmates will need no further explanation than the photos that follow.)

One odd thing is that Fitou is at roughly the same latitude as Milwaukee, Toronto and Portland, ME. Go figure.

The comparisons are easy to draw – geographic, topographic – but my bigger question is whether something beyond mere chance drew me here. After all, my express purpose was to go someplace different, yet now, 6000 miles from home, I find myself in very similar surroundings to those in which I grew up.

Is this an accident?