Thursday, we woke up super early only to find out our train was cancelled. Strikes. What can you do about ‘em? So then Madame took us to a nice restaurant called Le Train Bleu.
Our train was very, very late when we finally got into Toulouse, but our bus driver was very accomadating. I liked him. Much better than Normandie bus driver. Because of the strikes, we ended up being about 7 hours behind, so we didn’t see much of Toulouse. Instead, we went straight to Carcassone where we stayed the night at the wonderful Etap hotel.
Once we got ourselves settled in, we walked to the château, and I bonded splendidly with everyone there (picture shoots could do that to a person). Madame was ridiculously cute, Alexi was fun (we climbed the castle walls at one point), and the château was enormously big and wonderful. We saw it at night, but I remember my first impression of it was when we were driving in and the sun was setting. The château was already lit up, so it was gorgeous all lit up against the twilight sky. Beautiful. There was also a bum at the gates.
After we finished with the château, we went out to eat at this nice restaurant and had yummy pizza. When you here that rumor that Southern France makes wonderful pizzas, believe them and get thee to a restaurant that serves pizza. You will enjoy it.
In the morning, we were in a rush, so I didn’t double-check my room to make sure we forgot anything. Unfortunately for me, I forgot something, and I am currently trying to get it back. So then we get on the bus and go to this crazy awesome Château de Quéribus, a ruins that sits on top of a really big hill/little mountain. All of Southern France is peppered with all of these really old castles that currently sit in ruins, but it certainly adds to the atmosphere (that is, if you can decipher them from the gray rocks around them. Note to self: get contacts, or suck it up and wear your glasses). These castles were built for defense, obviously since you can hardly see them in the landscape. They were meant to camouflage into the scenery so that the enemy couldn’t see them. Really cool.
Then we went to the beach by Casino le Lydia. It was beautiful and salty, and a military plane flew right over our heads. So cool. I got all sandy – it was wonderful. We could have eaten there, but some people started complaining about how “expensive” it was (it was 5-8 euros, depending on what you ordered) so we opted out of a nice restaurant on the beach and ended up going to a bus stop and eating a 10 euro lunch that didn’t fill me up at all. Nope, not bitter at all.
After lunch, we drove to Abbaye de Frontfroide, which was really cool. It is no longer a working abbey because the monks moved out long ago, but someone had bought it and opened it to everyone who wanted to visit. The tour was in French, and I tried to follow along, but I don’t think I was too successful with that. Madame got us some audio guides in English, but why listen to that when you have a real, live tour guide (in French) to listen and practice your comprehension skills on instead? Did me a lot of good. The architecture was really pretty, though. Oh, and at one point, the tour guide sang in the chapel in Latin so we could get a taste of what it sounded like at the time, and it was very, very beautiful. You could almost feel the monks with you.
Then we went to Sarlat, registered in our hotel, and then wandered the streets to find a restaurant. Found one and had a 15 euro dinner, but it was so totally worth it, especially since it was 3 courses. I had foie gras, which was very good – tasted like flavored butter. Then I had canard, which was also very good. Then I had walnut cake for dessert. All of these things are regional. Walnuts and foie gras (goose or duck). Very good. All of them.
In the morning, we had the opportunity to wander around for the market. It was doubly awesome because Sarlat still resembles the medieval town it used to be. The streets were small and went everywhere, and when the market was going on, it really felt like you’d stepped back in time. It was amazing.
Then we went to Château de Beynac where they shot the movie for Joan of Arc. It was also very beautiful. A bunch of us got together and started playing hide and go seek, which didn’t last too long, unfortunately, because people who were playing go distracted and ended up looking around instead. Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.
When we finished up here, we went to Lascaux, which have these really amazing caves of wonders. I know for sure that my mom would have loved it. Before we went, though, we went into the city to have lunch, which was a much more difficult task than you would think. The whole city was shut down. I’m serious – out of the whole city, we walked around most of it to find a restaurant or a boulongerie that was open, or even a grocery store, but we could only find one pizza place open. Thankfully, I had already gotten some food, so I ate a baguette with goat cheese, which is (according to Madame) a cheese local to Southern France also.
Lascaux caves were amazing. I mean, we didn’t see the original, but we saw a replica that was pretty darn close to it (any mistakes were off by about 5 millimeters – nothing you could even see). The original caves are closed to the public because we breathe, and breathing ruins the paintings. But for a caveman, these were pretty well planned out. It was chock full of symbols that I could understand, and I’m really, really glad we went.
After this, we went to the train station… only to find out it had been cancelled due to strikes. Madame bought tickets for Sunday, and we found a place to stay the night. Before we settled in, we went to Colonges la Rouge (the bus driver was kind enough to go over his contract by one hour to get us there) which is a city all made of red. It was pretty amazing. Lots of red, red, red. I also found a farm where they fatten up their geese. Also, a donkey who was having a temper tantrum, then stood still for us all to take pictures of him. A bunch of us had ice cream. It was a great city.
Then we got to our hotel, which we had all to ourselves, surprisingly enough. It looked like it had been an old house before it was a hotel, but for all the creakiness of the place, it looked rather beautiful. We had so much fun, here. We had a pizza party, I took my oral exam, and then we all played with Annie. It’s a game where someone is brought in to converse with this “dead” spirit who has returned to avenge her death. So much fun. Annie officially became a member of the group from then on.
Sunday, we had our unofficial church meeting. We gathered around, sang, and had a testimony meeting. We couldn’t really do much because it was raining, and we were in a questionable part of town. We stayed at the hotel until it was time to go catch our train (which thankfully hadn’t gone on strike). Yay!
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