Road Trip Day 7, Final Day: Return to Tours via Carcassonne

Tuesday, November 1 is Toussaint holiday, or All Saints Day in France and Spain and it was my last day of holidays before having to go back to school, so that day we basically just drove back to Tours.  Alanna had noticed that the town of Carcassonne was somewhat en route, and since we both had heard of this place because of the board game of the same name (one of those German board games), we were intrigued.  Once again, we turned to Rick Steves for an excellent tour description and we really enjoyed this amazing old, fortressed town.

Definitely take a read of the google link there about the town.  Note, that the ss are pronounced as "s", not as "z".  There is a folk story that tells of a woman named Carcas who, when the city was under siege,  threw a pig over the wall causing the attackers to assume that the city still had enough supplies (or else why would they waste a pig?) and that there was no way that they'd be able to win so they gave up and left.  Then the city sounded the bells, from which "son" came and from the two, Carcas-son, came the name.  Apparently. 
Here is a statue of the lady right beside the drawbridge!







Not a lot to say, just a lot of pictures to post again!

Rick informed us that we could see red bricks that are remnants from the original wall from Roman days.  (See next picture.)  This was consistent with what I had learned in my History of Tours class, since there are remnants of a Roman amphitheatre in Tours, and there is a noticeable difference between Roman-built walls and walls built in the Middle Ages.  At Carcassonne, the second wall was added in the Middle Ages.
(These next photos are credit to Judy again because my camera battery died again at this point.)

We enjoyed some regional food at a restaurant within the walls and then realized we were kind of behind again and still had a long way to drive!  (Behold the map!)

At some point when we were supposed to switch onto another autoroute, I missed the entrance and the GPS (who we had named Ginger P. Sky by this point--and had her becoming the petite-copine of Rick Steves) recalculated.  We just followed along this new route and well, it was VERY dark and VERY windy (as in, winding around)!  We were still a couple of hours south of Tours and, although I have no idea what roads we were on and what dark villages (small-town France is very quiet after 19:00) we went through, we never actually lost any time!  Good ol' Ginger.

And thus concludes the Road Trip adventure.  The next day, I went back to school (starting with another lesson out on the streets about Tours' history) and my friends went shopping!  I ordered some escargots at dinner for them to taste and the following day, we had a little adventure on the Tours bus in the rain, searching for some final French wares for them.

Amazing that a month has passed already and I have since visited another castle near Tours; wandered around a nearby village, some vineyards and a wine cave; learned lots more neat things about Tours' history; had a couple of tests and a class presentation on the ban on Muslim women wearing integral veils (I forget what we would say in English instead of "integral"); ate a French seafood platter (apparently this is a thing one must do); went skating and ate some Lebanese mezzés (that was last night); and, travelled to Switzerland and had an amazing time visiting some old friends!

So there are obviously photos to share and things to write, but well, I have been seriously procrastinating studying for my upcoming exams (three next week), researching for two upcoming presentations and other homework.  So those posts will come another day.

Road Trip Day 6: Barcelona

For my program at Wilfrid Laurier University, I had to take a course on cultural aspects of France, Spain and Germany and from this class, I learned some about Barcelona and Catalonia.  In particular, I learned a lot about the 19th-20th century architect Antoni Gaudí and had seen a lot of pictures of his unique works in Barcelona.  So I recommended to the gals that we check out at least two of them: Parc Güell and Sagrada Família and on Monday morning we set out to find our way into the city by commuter train from our suburb.  Before that though, I wanted to re-park.  The night before had been a little stressful trying to fit into tight spaces in the underground lot.  It had been impossible in fact, so I made up a space.  Fortunately, there was a new one open that I could take Monday morning.  Phew, European parking--stresses me out a bit even to write about it!

We found the back entrance to Parc Güell, which demanded a very long and steep climb.  There were escalators, but my companions preferred the stairs (I did a combination, preferring not to start my day off all sweaty :) and I am certain they are in better shape than I!)  This picture kind of shows the height and the steepness.








The park was what I expected, but the crowds were insane and we found ourselves not enjoying this introduction to Barcelona.

But it is quite pretty and unique.

Sitting on the cold benches and taking photos of the mosaic was kind of fun

 We found as quiet of a way possible out of the park and wandered some streets.  We noticed some graffiti in Catalan that seemed a little angry at tourists and maybe just at everything.  (Interesting that both places we visited in Spain are not historically Spanish--Catalonia, like Vasco, having a history and story of its own.)

Back on a more main road, we saw loads of tourists again, including people riding double-decker tourist buses.  It was a good reminder of how much I preferred our methods of touring.  We carried on in search of the famous, unfinished cathedral, the Sagrada Familia.  Gaudí certainly had lofty ambitions in designing this church--it is so big and sooo different.

The back

The front

The lines to go inside were too long for us, so our next destination was the famous Las Ramblas, basically a long walkway of open-air markets and such.  We went to the waterfront (after reaching the Atlantic the day before, we needed to get to the Mediterranean) where we chose somewhere to eat--a Chinese restaurant!  (There weren't a lot of affordable options and we did manage to try some tapas later that evening.)

See, more crowds!

This is the Catalonia flag

We tired of Las Ramblas and went in search of the Gothic Quarter of the city.  We heard a commotion a little ways off and saw lots of yellow shirts and as we approached, we realized that a flash mob had broken out.  I tried catching some on video.

In wandering around the Gothic Quarter, we didn't do much except a little shopping, watched some kids dressed up for Halloween and I messed around with my night time photography of the Barcelona Cathedral.

All in all, a successful day--a whirlwind tour again of a major tourist destination, but I think we were all satisfied with the taste of Barcelona we experienced.  Did you notice, there was no driving this day?!

Road Trip Day 5: Pays Basque/Pais Vasco and the Pyrenées

Sunday morning, we got up confused!  The alarm on my iPod seemed to have sounded an hour later than I set it for, but when I looked at it, it DID say 7:00.  Judy's watch said 8:00.  So we turned on the tv in the hotel room and it also said 7:00.  So I started thinking, did we drive across a time zone last night?!  Then someone suggested (I think it was Mel, clever girl) that the clocks must have gone back--it was the last weekend in October after all.  So that made sense and we carried on (although, I would find myself confused again later that evening).

We got up ready for another full day in the car, but we were anticipating some extreme beauty.  A month before, when this idea for the road trip came up, I had googled "driving in Europe" and found some recommended places at this Guardian newspaper link that had one recommended drive that could work for us: Basque Country.  Doing some reading in Rick Steves' again (this time, since Basque is in both countries, we had to read both the French book and the Spain book that Judy brought, although the Spain book wasn't a Rick Steves book and just wasn't the same), we learned that the people from Basque speak a language called Euskara and that this language is unique without any connection to any other languages (it is not a latin language, for example, like the French and Spanish that surround its speakers)!  Very interesting.  Euskara has a lot of k's and z's and here is a bilingual sign at the beach in San Sebastián.

We were not disappointed with the drive and before we arrived to our lunch destination of San Sebastián, we discovered the beauty that is Biarritz, in French Basque.

 This photo does not do justice to the amazing view of the ocean and the Pyrenées.  We decided that we would try to get to the beach and we did!  Amazing...I was suddenly quite overdressed!

We started up really high and then made our way down.  The waves were incredible and mesmerizing.  Some absolutely monstrous and killer waves.  I tried making a video...

 We continued on in search of Spain!  We arrived, but we don't know exactly when since there was no welcoming sign.  We were following signs for San Sebastián, or "Donostia" as it seemed to be called in Euskara and at some point we noticed that there was no more French.  San Sebastián was also gorgeous: we passed through the city centre quickly in search again of the beach, but both were beautiful.  We reached our goal for lunch, but since it was a Sunday, it was hard to find anything open and we ended up only finding a döner place...really cool ordering shawarmas from a Turkish guy in Spanish Basque...he seemed to speak a zillion languages!

This is a creative shot by Judy...some girls were just wandering the streets on their own, eating ice cream

We still had a long drive ahead to make it just west of Barcelona for the night, but a beautiful drive!  Albeit, kind of scary with speeds of 100 km/h through the Pyrenées!  Since I was driving, these following shots are courtesy of Mel.

Photo Credit: Mel Horst

Once out of the mountains, things were a lot more barren and not so photogenic, but as the day passed on, it got pretty again.

Nice shot, Mel!

The time confusion came up again at this point, when we found ourselves crossing the Greenwich (Prime) Meridian that evening.  There was a digital clock posted after we crossed it that had us all of

sudden an hour ahead of where we had just been!  Then a few kms later, there was another clock that had us an hour behind again!  This happened a couple of times and was very confusing!

When we finally arrived to the hotel in Rubí, a sort of suburb city to Barcelona, we were still in the time zone we left in Bordeaux that morning and the clock change theory had stuck.  (It was confusing too, because in North America, the clocks didn't end up going "back" until a couple of weekends later.)  How does an iPod know, by the way?  It's the most amazing thing to me.  When I walk around in Tours, the map application is able to locate me sometimes too!  (I'm not connected to anything, so it blows my mind.  Most amazing prize that I won...the dictionary apps that I bought have been such lifesavers too!)

Here is our day's long, but beautiful route.

Road Trip Day 4: Chenonceau, Chinon and driving a lot

I'm obviously getting further and further behind on this blog as day four of this road trip was a month ago now!  And every weekend since, I've been able to do something pretty cool...so there is even more stuff to blog about and cool pictures to add!  But lots of exams and things are coming too...and there is less than one month left here...I'll do my best to chip away at blogging!

So after our night at my place here in Tours, we decided to visit a couple of the famous castles in the Loire Valley (I blogged a bit about this in October).  First stop was the famous Château Chenonceau.

Oh I had been able to charge my camera at this point!

There were wasp's (?) nests in the tower

Last week in my History of Tours class, we learned more about this castle, so it was neat to apply that to what I had seen a month ago.  Chenonceau represents three phases of architecture: medieval, the beginning of Renaissance which is a mixture of medieval styles too and then official Renaissance style.  The guy who had it built worked for various French kings, so had to earn his social status.  He started building Chenonceau where a fortified castle had been and left a tower from this castle, thus representing the older architectural style.

As you move from the tower into the castle, the style is the mixed one, with Renaissance ideas brought from Italy and implemented for the first time in France.  Things such as a the straight staircase--one of the first in France.

There were gorgeous flower arrangements and tapestries like this everywhere throughout the castle.

We spent ages wandering around this castle, admiring the decor and the fireplaces!

Judy loving the real fire

Mel admiring the velour walls and wood ceiling

And Alanna admiring something in the gallery

Chenonceau is also known as the Ladies Chateau since a few women had a lot of say in its construction over the years.  The original guy's wife had a hand in its design.  He lost ownership to the king to pay off debts and then the next king, Henri II, offered Chenonceau to his mistress, Diane de Poitiers.  She was the one who wanted to add to the castle and commissioned the building of the bridge part over the river (see picture above) and she started the nice gardens.  But when Henri died and his wife, Catherine, became Regent, Diane was kicked out.  Catherine really took the castle over and had more added to it, such as the gallery over top of the bridge, which, being the latest addition, has a different architectural style.  In the first picture above, you can see the sort-of "dormer windows" in the gallery and according to my professor, the further to the left the building goes, the more Renaissance the design is (more decorative for example).


The gardens were really nice too and we had a great time wandering around.

There you can see the original tower and then the castle (left).

From Chenonceau, we drove to the town of Chinon, known for its wine and for its castle.  It is more of a defensive castle, with ramparts and walls, rather than the fancy, country-home type castle that Chenonceau is.  We wandered around, trying to find our way in the walls.  Took some pictures, then agreed to not bother to pay to go inside (having had our share of castle touring--there had been Versailles just a few days earlier too) and considering we had a long drive ahead.

We wanted to get as far south as possible that day, with Bordeaux as the goal, but we were way behind in our time!  But we did it (sadly, our on-the-road dinner left much to be desired.  The girls can attest that French mac and cheese at a service station is not so good)!  And we successfully found a super cheap hotel right off the highway.  Here's a nice artsy pic from the hotel window the next morning.