June 30 - Toulouse, Blagnac Airport, CDG and Home

 

 

 

We woke to a beautiful sunny day. Air France had notified us this morning of a one hour delay on our flight, so after breakfast we did some walking around for one last hit of tourist lust. Sat in Place Wilson with the rest of the Toulousians (?), admiring the fountain, sunning, reading the paper (even if our French est non bien pas). Then to Capitol Square and St Sernin's cathedral before heading back to the hotel to get our bags and check out. 

We had noticed at breakfast that the construction crews had blocked off the street we needed to go on to get to the hotel, and the alternate street was blocked by a moving truck backing up traffic into the main avenue. So we just took our stuff, put it on the roller bag, and walked the few blocks to the garage.

With all the concerns about being able to get out of the city it turned out to be a pice of cake because we were parked right on the main avenue needed to exit the city and there were sign every few 100 meters. Bridgette helped a little, but you still needed to watch signs not to take an exit too soon as some exits are just a few feet after each other. We made the airport, and Avis, in 20 minutes.

At check in the agent repeated what we knew but then handed us vouchers for use at the restaurant for sandwiches and drinks. Can you imagine AA doing that?

As we've probably said before, we really liked Toulouse, a large city but very easy to get around in.

This will be our last blog update. Got to CDG and the Novotel, and are shortly going out for our last dinner in France.

We're looking forward to getting back tomorrow. We've had a fabulous trip but are still looking forward to home.

June 29 - Toulouse - Place de la Trinite

June 29 - St. Antonin Val Noble

June 29 - St. Antonin Val Noble

June 29 - St.Antonin Val Noble, Toulouse

This is our final day before we start our flights home. While we are sad to see our France vacation end all too quickly, we feel very fortunate to have had spectacular weather and to have seen some incredible sites.

We left Sarlat this morning at 10am to cloudy cool weather. We drove through fog and clouds as we worked our way through the Tarn de Gorges en route to the medieval city of St Antonin Val Noble. This was another gorgeous medieval town with timbered homes from the 12C. We walked the town for about an hour and then left for Toulouse.

We arrived back in Toulouse about 3pm and it seemed like ages ago since we were here. We've seen and done so much, we lost track of what we saw here. We decided to take the tourist train around the city and realized that all the sites on the tour we had seen on our walking tour 2 weeks ago. It was good to relax and let someone else do the driving though.

It is amazing how many people are wandering the streets and shopping. This is the 2nd largest city in France and has many beautiful buildings and the largest cathedral in France. After our tour of the city by train, we walked around the major tourist areas and stopped for dinner again on Place Wilson. We decided to have an Italian meal; after 3 weeks of rich French food of Duck and Foie Gras, we were ready for a change and looking for to great Mexican food this weekend. Meanwhile, another great meal that we needed to walk off.

Bon Soir for now.

June 28 - Entrance to caves of Rouffignac

June 28 - Lunch at Les Eyzies

A fabulous Rainbow trout with almonds, potatoes Sardalaise, and rice pilaf.

June 28 - Main Room in Forte de Reignac

June 28 - Forte de Reignac

The view is of open ledges at the top, where man lived 14,000 years ago and the lower ledges where the openings were closed in for defense in later years.

June 28 - Forte de Reignac, Grotte Rouffignac

Relief from the 2-day heat wave! Today we had high clouds and temps in the mid 70's. Great for sightseeing.

After walking to the Petite Casino to buy dinner for tonight we headed out to Forte de Reignac, a fantastic visit. This was a fortress built high on the limestone cliffs, first used 17,000 yrs ago and then a fortress was built during the middle ages. The rooms were decorated with furniture from the 15th to 17th centuries and the English handout gave an excellent account of the history of the middle ages and the lives of the people that lived in the fortress.

At the end of the tour, there was a special exhibit on torture devices used during the middle ages. It is always astounding the ways humans could think of ways to torture other humans and makes you glad you did not live during those times. There was also a good explanation of how knights were brought up and their main purpose in life was to kill whether it be to protect his property, family or just for the hell of it.

We spent most of the morning here and then drove a short distance to Les Eyzies for lunch at a cafe called La Grinottere. Karen had a Croque Monsieur with frites and Michael had trout with almonds and sarladaise potatoes (which are excellent).

After a leisurely lunch, we headed to another cave called Grotte Rouffignac. All of the caves offer something different and interesting. This cave was about 1200 meters long and upon entering the cave, you take a small train ride through the cave stopping along the way to view the walls with bear scratches, see where cave bears made their dens and view cave paintings. The final stop you get out of the train and see an amazing sight. The ceiling is covered in mammoths, Ibex, horses, bison from 14,000 yrs ago. It is astounding to think that these Magdelenian people crawled through the caves with rudimentary lamps and painted these beautiful images on their backs. They could only see a small area, yet the animals were painted lifelike in many cases.

That, unfortunately, was the end of our sightseeing in the Sarlat area. This was our last night and we hated to say goodbye to Maison Josephine.

Tomorrow will be a long drive, almost 200 Kms, as we go a bit Southwest for some more sights and then South Eastward to Toulouse

June 27 - St-Amand-de-Coly

June 27 - Gardens at Hautefort

June 27 - Chateau Hautefort

June 27 - Chateau Hautefort

June 27 - Chateau de Hautefort, St-Amand-de-Coly, Abri du Cap Blanc

Another 100 degree day, but the humidity is only 22% :).

We got a 10am start to Chateau de Hautefort, a truly picturesque castle, one you would recognize. Though the spot it was on has had some castle from the 9C through the 17C, it was bought by Baron Henri de Bastard and his wife in 1929 and restored it as well as adding French style gardens. A fire hit in 1968 and they had to rebuild. The place however looks like a classic French castle and not as the medieval castle it started as.

We spent an hour and a half there and then began driving, looking for a small town to eat at and found St. Agnan. A small village, with a quaint eating place and covered patio and arbors. Pizza for Karen, but no matter how often Michael says he'll have a small lunch, again, not so. Though this time no wine. A salad with Avocado, shrimp, Lettuce and mayonnaise dressing followed by a large filet of Salmon, with Haricots Verte and a garlicky sauce and tomatoe, that followed by an Apple tart which we shared. Dinner will be late tonight.

Off to stop at St-Amand-de-Coly, population 394. The main attraction being its 12C church, with 12 foot thick walls, which went from church to fortress, during the Hundred Years War, and then back. Those thick walls meant that when we entered, granted it was probably 100 degrees out, it felt like we walked into a freezer.

Finally off to Abri du Cap Blanc, a rock shelter uncovered in 1909, with a frieze almost 50 feet long of bas relief in stone of horses and bison. This was once a cliff ledge on which people lived 15,000 years ago and created these artistic sculptures in the limestone walls. Today they've built a protective structure over the cliff face and you enter it to walk the ledge and admire the art. Truly an amazing site to see.

Then back to Sarlat to rest and wash up and go out to dinner.

June 26 - St Cyprien, Les Eyzies de Tayac, Le Bugue, Font de Gaume Cave

Today we woke to beautiful sunny skies but the forecast was for hot weather today, so we got an early start and drove about 20km from Sarlat to St. Cyprien for their big market.  We browsed the streets and were able to take our time since the crowds had not yet arrived.   It was still relatively cool but we knew it wouldn't last long.  

We had planned to spend our day visiting Hautefort Castle, one of the biggest and best in the area, most of which is inside.  We wanted to do something to stay out of the afternoon heat.  We drove by Font-de-Gaume cave and decided to see if we could get tickets.  This is the best of the original pre-historic cave art in the world.  We had not originally planned to see this cave since we had visited Pech Merle and Lascaux and it is low and narrow and given my claustrophobia was a little concerned but decided to try given the magnificence of the other caves we had seen.   They limit the number of people to 100 per day to preserve the paintings.  We lucked out and were able to get tickets for the 3pm English speaking tour with only 9 people on our tour.  We met a couple from England and one from New York.

We spent mid morning until lunch visiting the fabulous Pre-History museum in Les Eyzies de Tayac, a town just down the street from the cave after which we had a leisurely lunch and then a brief drive to the small town of Le Bugue.  We didn't do much walking as there is not a lot to see here plus it was so hot (97 degrees)!  

The cave tour lasted 45 minutes and it was great to see the original artwork from 17,000-20,000 yrs ago, mostly paintings of bison and some reindeer.

We were a little worried about the apartment being hot and no A/C but it was actually cool when we walked in; we couldn't believe it.  Those thick limestone walls really do keep things cool.

It's supposed to be another hot day again tomorrow, so we will be spending it doing some inside activities.

June 26 - Michael a la Frenchy

June 26 - Pre-History Museum- Example of Cave Art

This is actual cave art recovered from one of the local caves and an example of what we saw in Font de Gaume, Pech Merle and Lascaux caves.

June 26 - Making Paella at St. Cyprien Market

June 26 - Field of Sunflowers