Happy Blog

Hi Kaylee,
The post yesterday made me feel sad too, so today I am going to talk about happy things instead.

Guess what else we did at Oradour sur Glane? We found a geocache! It was a multi-cache so we had to answer questions about the town in order to find the co-ordinates. Do you know what geocaching is? You can find out by watching this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4VFeYZTTYs

Here is a picture of me with the cache. I found it before Jim this time!

Did you remember that Monday was Jim's birthday? We let him decide what we were going to do that day, and he chose to go to Chenonceau castle in the Loire Valley and go to a winery and taste some wines. Chenonceau is one of my favorite castles - you can see why if you look at a picture of it. Wouldn't it be cool to live over a river?

We saw a lot of old furniture and paintings in the castle that I won't bore you with, although believe it or not I am starting to be able to differentiate between different periods! We did see a few cool things though. This is a gadget that they used to rotisserie meat over the fireplace. Doesn't it look like something that Grandpa Mike might have invented?

And look at this floor. The black tiles were made out of a hard slate but the white tiles were made out of a much softer stone, and have worn away much faster than the black ones, leaving the floor very uneven. I guess they should have thought of that 600 years ago!

I also saw this sign in the kitchen:

You know, when Stephen said he was the garde manger chef (which meant that he was in charge of the cold dishes) I never put 2 and 2 together until I saw that sign! The larder is where they kept the food cold! See, these castles can be very educational.

Something else I noticed in the castle was that all the flowers in the vases were fresh. I was thinking that it must cost them a fortune to do that but then I found out that all the flowers are grown in the estate gardens and there is a team of people who are responsible for arranging the flowers and changing them twice a week. What a lovely job that would be! We went to the gardens after the castle. They built a farm on the grounds when they built the castle, so that they could be self-sustaining. Now it is mostly flower gardens and they are beautiful.

You know how I found out about the flowers? From the audio guide. But these weren't any ordinary audio guides, these were iPods! You just had to tap on the name of the room you were in and it told you all about it, along with a video! Up until this point Jim had been using his fishing license as ID to get the audio guides for the places we were visiting. But these people were too smart to let him leave a $40 fishing license and walk away with 4 iPods. This time he had to leave a real ID.

Of course since it was Jim's birthday, we had to try to find another cache. This one was near the castle and we got to walk along this beautiful path along the river.

Guess who found it? Aunt Liz! She knows she is a "muggle" and when she found it she said, "Ha Ha, the muggle has it!"

When we planned this trip I thought it would be fun if we got to stay in a real castle. Chateau Brou was built around the same time as Chenonceau - can you see the resemblance?

Look at our cool bed! It was pretty fancy. All the rooms were different and named after famous people in French history. Ours was named after Robillard.

Tomorrow I will tell you all about our dinner, I am getting tired and I'd better get some rest because tomorrow is The Louvre. Oh yes, I forgot to tell you where we are now - look!

I saved the best surprise for you till last. Guess who we met in Chartres? Your twin sister! She was really funny - here she didn't want her picture taken.

But here she is sitting pretty. Doesn't she look like you? She sure made me miss you!

Be a good girl. I'm glad you are having so much fun - we are too!

Oradour sur Glane

The reason we stayed in Limoges was that we wanted to visit Oradour sur Glane which is about a half hour away. It is a very sad story.

On June 10, 1944, four days after the Allied invasion of Normandy, approximately 150 Waffen-SS soldiers surrounded and entered the town of Oradour sur Glane. They brutally murdered 642 innocent inhabitants, including women and children, and burnt the town to the ground.

When they entered the town, they ordered the people to assemble in the town square,  and since the people were innocent of any wrong-doing they complied. The SS then separated the women and children from the men and locked them inside the church. They took the men away to 6 different locations, where they shot at them then trapped them in the buildings while they set them on fire. They came back to the women and children and shot them all, then set the church on fire to make sure no one escaped alive.

The Germans claimed that they were retaliating against the french underground, although there were no known members in that town. It was considered an act of terrorism. The ruins of the martyred village have been preserved as a memorial.

Street

Main Street

Car

In front of the church

Sewing Machine

Memorial Plaque 

Here lived:

Felix Aliotti                          Age 29

Clea Aliotti                          Age 23

Christiane Aliotti                  Age 4

Marie Christine Aliotti         Age 2

Michele Aliotti                    Age 2 months

Pram

Carcassonne and Limoges

When I asked Boris what he wanted to see in France he said, "Carcassonne". I had never heard of it before, but apparently there is a board game based on the medieval city and castle. I am really glad he knew about it because it is one of the most amazing castles I have ever seen.

http://www.carcassonne.culture.fr/

Gate and drawbridge

The gate into the city was curved, so that no one could just ram their way straight in.There was a wooden gate and then a metal grate that came from above. The turrets beside the gate had slots facing outwards to shoot enemies, but also had slots facing inwards in case they got that far.

Outer and inner wall

The town was surrounded by a wall, and then another wall was built about 20 feet outside that wall. They used this area to practice jousting and sometimes for shows and fairs. It certainly worked as extra protection.

Dame Carcas

The legend of the name of the town comes from the time when Charlemagne was trying to overtake it. The residents of the town were running out of provisions and were starting to lose the battle when Dame Carcas came up with an idea. She stuffed a pig with grain and tossed it over the wall onto the attacking soldiers. When they saw the pig they thought to themselves that if the townspeople had enough food to throw a pig over the wall that they would not be defeated soon, and so they retreated. The town was saved and they named it after Dame Carcas.

The town had all these little twisty windy streets with very old buildings. Most of them had been turned into tourist shops, but it was fun to walk around.

We found one store with lots of nougat. I'm going to have to buy some - it's everywhere here!

Nougat

There was a shop where you could buy medieval costumes and we saw this little girl and boy come out all dressed up in their finery. They walked into the castle with us and I noticed that their mother was trying to take their picture standing in the door of the gate. They were standing there nicely and all the people behind the mother were waiting behind her for her to take the picture, but for some reason this man decided to stand behind the children. It was obvious that the mother didn't want the man in the picture, so she told the children to move to the side and let everyone through. The boy grabbed the girl's arm and apparently she thought he was being too rough because she complained loudly. When all the people had passed and the boy and girl took up their places in the doorway again, she just had the biggest scowl on her face so her mother said never mind. I told Jim that she should have taken the picture anyway. Any mother watching this knew exactly what she was going through because we have all been there. Looking back now I can laugh at the times that the boys just frustrated the heck out of me!

Children in costume

The Ramparts

City rooftops from the ramparts

While waiting at a cafe for Boris to come out of the castle, Liz and I saw the waiter bring this bun of fries to a man on the other side of the terrace. We couldn't believe our eyes! We decided that we needed one just so that we could take a picture of it! It turned out not to be just fries on the bun, there was a sausage under there somewhere. Later on we thought that it might have been better if we had just asked that man if we could take a picture of his bun!

Bun of Fries

One thing we have learned on this trip - if you are going to a popular tourist spot, go early! You saw the picture of the deserted street when we first entered the city - this is what it looked like as we were leaving!

Too many tourists

We pick up brochures at all the hotels we go to and Liz had found one advertising caves about 30 minutes from Carcassone. She had never been to a cave before so we headed up there. The landscape is all limestone here - they even had cannonballs in the castle that they had formed from the stone. It is soft and water has no problem carving out caves and making stalagmites and tites.

There was a little British boy on the tour and he said the funniest thing - "Mum, are there dragons in here?"

After the caves we headed up to Limoges where we were spending the night. It was about a 4 hour drive - France is a lot bigger than you think. We get places pretty quickly though because Boris drives 140 km on the autobahn. (The speed limit is 130 here).

We stopped at the hotel and then headed into town for dinner. Other than its famous porcelain, we didn't really know much about the city. We had found a geocache listing near Les Halles (the central market, like in Avignon) and decided to try it. We had to answer some questions, one of which was how many Limoges tiles were on the building. Answer - 368. That building is worth a lot of money! We ended up not finding the cache, and didn't have much luck in Tours the next night either. City caches seem to be either very difficult or missing.

We found a really busy circle in the centre of Limoges where we had the most delicious crepes. Jim and Boris had savoury crepes, and Liz and I had dessert crepes because we had had that snack earlier. I only took one picture in Limoges. We have to try to get to these citieswhen it is still light.

Look - the french equivalent of a dollar store. Only it's a 2 euro store. That is about $2.80 Canadian. And it's the same stuff as in our dollar store. Boy, are we lucky.

2 Euro Store

I am trying to keep up with blogging but when we only get back to the hotel at 11:30 or midnight I really don't feel like staying up any later to write a blog. And of course I can only write it when we have internet (ie. in the hotel). Today is Jim's birthday and we are staying in a chateau. I am dying to tell you all about it but I still have yesterday to write about. It would be so great if I could write it in the car - it would mean I could pay less attention to the fact we are going so fast!

Pont du Gard, Nimes and Narbonne

Lavender bouquets

On the way out of town Friday, we stopped at another market in Carpentras. The markets have such wonderful smells, including lots of lavender, for which Provence is known.

Lavender

They also had these neat bouquets of peppers. I really wanted to bring one home but was afraid that customs wouldn't let me bring it into Canada.

Bouquets of peppers

Macarons

France is also known for its macarons. We bought some of these to have for a mid-morning snack. I keep trying to find ones that are as good as the ones Steve made for our anniversary, but his are still the best!

Macarons au fraise

Our first destination was the Pont du Gard outside Uzes. It was part of the 50 km long aquaduct that brought water to Nimes. It was interesting learning that water was a sign of wealth in those days. They used much more water per capita than we do now - there were fountains and baths everywhere in Nimes. The construction of this bridge took place in the first century AD and still stands 2000 years later. It dropped one centimetre every 350 metres - can you imagine figuring out that angle over all those mountains? Those roman engineers were quite amazing.

Pont du Gard

Again it was built without any mortar. A wooden frame was constructed to hold up the arch until the keystone was placed. Those stonemasons had to be pretty accurate.

Underside of arch - Pont du Gard

We stopped for a coffee afterwards. This is the life. Just look at that terrace in front of that beautiful building, not a cloud in the sky, and delicious cafe au lait!

Cafe on the terrace

In Nimes there is a very well preserved roman amphitheatre. It is about a third of the size of the Colosseum in Rome.

Colosseum Nimes

It is used mostly for bull fights and shows now. Can you hear the roar of the crowd as the bull swishes past the matador?? We missed a major bullfight by one week. There is certainly a lot of Spanish influence here.

Colosseum Nimes

We stopped for dinner in Narbonne, mindful of the fact that restaurants have very strict times that their kitchens are open. On the way through town we noticed a huge flock of starlings swooping and swirling over the river. It was quite something to watch. We've had a couple of discussions since about how the birds know exactly when to turn, land, etc.

Flock of starlings

The city hall of Narbonne was lovely. It had been a very wealthy city once, having the ability to collect taxes along the river.

City hall Narbonne

I heard somewhere once that patchwork originated in North America, but I am sure that all the patterns came from Europe, particularly from the tile floors. This is the floor (outside) in front of the town hall. It is basically a square in a square pattern or a sawtooth star. I especially like the "border treatment"!

Grand Place, Narbonne

Elaine, did you ever see these stores in France? Do you know what they are???

Speaking of stores - we saw this window display on our way to dinner. I wonder what kind of school they are talking about?!?!