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.