We went first to Gruissan Plage, the nearest ocean beach.  The sand there was amazingly fine and soft, but the wind was so powerful that it quickly blanketed our towels with fine sand.  We had a nice time, but it wasn’t quite the weather we had hoped for.

You can see the wind blowing in this picture. She looks to me like she’s exploring a desert somewhere.

We did later find a more sheltered beach near the marina.

The kids built sand castles and played in the water.

The waves weren’t very big, but that didn’t stop them from riding the surf.

We rented this little Fiat 500 for the trip.  It was a fun car to drive, but it was a bit small for us with our gear.  We had pared down to hand luggage to save money on the budget airline which charges for checked bags.  But we couldn’t quite fit everything in the back and people weren’t particularly happy to have a suitcase riding next to them.

We spent some time wandering around the Gruissan marina, finding some enjoyable meals and doing a little shopping.  Sage wasn’t feeling particularly well – it turned out she developed a throat infection – and was carried around a bit.

It’s a good thing she likes to cuddle.

We also spent a day in Collioure, a beautiful town close to the Spanish border. The Pyrennees tumble down into the ocean here and the town’s deep harbor is nestled in among the rocky points. The beach here is pebbly and fronted by some amazing castles and a stone lighthouse. We hung out for several hours at the beach, playing with the rocks and doing fancy dives off a floating platform in the ocean. Afterwards, we had tapas and wine before exploring Argeles, another sandy beach just north of Collioure.

I had left the camera charging back in Gruissan, so I missed the many photogenic opportunities this day, but here is a picture taken by another visitor to Collioure that gives a flavor of this unique town.

I’m not sure how they got started on the funny faces at the restaurant, but some of these are pretty scary!

Horrible faces not withstanding, we had a wonderful trip to France. I’d certainly enjoy returning again someday.

We entered the Rouffignac Cave riding on a small train.  This was a fun way to see the cave, but also helps preserve the paintings by keeping visitors away from the surfaces and limiting the heat produced by lighting which is powered by the train’s battery.  The area’s most well-known cave, Lascaux, has been closed to the public for a number of years now due to deteriorating conditions.  Apparently, the replica paintings in what is known as Lascaux II are beautiful, but I can’t imagine that the experience compares with traveling into a real cave.

Along the way into the cave we passed a large number of round holes in the cave floor.  It looked something like craters on the surface of the moon, but apparently was the result of hibernating bears who dug into the clay with their paws and turned around and around.  The walls of the cave were covered with long scratch marks where the bears had stretched and sharpened their claws after the winter’s repose.  Bones found during excavations in the cave reveal that three species of bears have inhabited the cave over the years, though they had abandoned this grotto before humans came to decorate the walls.

The cave paintings here date from about 13,000 years ago and depict mammoth, bison, ibex, horses, and rhinoceros.  Some of them are etched into the cave walls, while others are drawn with black lines.  The etchings were only visible when our guide shown his light on them from an angle.  They disappeared into the surrounding rock when the light was shining head on. Others are drawn with black lines made with manganese dioxide.

The artists who created these drawings were highly skilled.  Sometimes they incorporated features of the cave walls into the designs.  Not only are the drawings very aesthetically pleasing, but the techniques they used were quite sophisticated.  For instance, they choose different tools to achieve different effects, recognizing variations in rock types.  The details included in the drawings reveal deep anatomical knowledge of the animals they represent.  One of the mammoth drawings includes an anal flap that was only recently discovered on the frozen remains of a mammoth from Siberia.

The area with the highest concentration of drawings once had a very low ceiling and the artists must have painted while lying on their backs after crawling into the gallery.  A funnel in the cave floor leads deep below the gallery and may have lent special significance to the space.  One of the very few human images represented in prehistoric art is found in a narrow passage at the bottom of the well.

The French government has put together a nice website documenting the Lascaux cave, if you are interested in learning more about cave paintings.

After leaving Rouffignac Cave, we went to another historical site, La Roque St. Christophe. This limestone cliff, over a kilometer in length, was inhabited from about 55,000 years ago. It gradually developed into a fortified medieval town until it was destroyed in 1588 to eliminate a Protestant stronghold.

The location is simply beautiful, overlooking the fertile valley below. It might have been a bit of a climb to get back home each day, but the view and the security it provided must have been worth it for people to have lived here for so long.

There were a number of exhibits set up to give a flavor of life at La Roque St. Christophe. These devices were used during the Middle Ages to lift supplies from the valley floor.

This device was operated in a fashion similar to the trebuchet we saw at Warwick Castle. People walking inside the treadmill were able to life very heavy objects with little effort.

Cliff dwellers had carved furniture and shelves into the rock. These loops were used to hang meat in the butchery and similar loops were used to secure animals that were brought to shelter in the cliffs.

If you are interested in learning more about La Roque St. Christophe, here are some interesting photos and a video.

We ate a delicious dinner and explored the streets a bit.

This is the alley that led from the closest car park to our hotel.  The buildings in Sarlat are incredible and really give you a sense of living in history.

I find something about doorways to be fascinating.  I’m not sure where this one led, but I couldn’t resist taking a picture of it.

This is the view out of our hotel room window.  I went wandering about town after the kids went to sleep and happened across a classical music concert inside the Sarlat Cathedral.  It was incredibly moving to listen to the talented quintet play music in such an amazing building.

I think we could have spent quite a bit more time in Sarlat.  The Saturday market was just getting setup as River and I ventured out to get breakfast and coffee.  Instead, though, we went to explore some of France’s amazing prehistorical sites.

La Roque-Gageac was quite charming.  It is located right next to the water.  We watched many boats pass by.  Canoeing the Dordogne seems to be quite popular and it certainly would be a wonderful way to see the area.

The village is located on the southern side of the cliff face and it provides a unique microclimate that supports subtropical flora.  The gardens up the cliff were very beautiful!

It was really an idyllic scene.

Apparently, the site had been occupied for many years and there were the remains of a prehistoric settlement even further up the cliff.  The cliff provided quite good protection for the settlement and it was heavily fortified during medieval times.

The afternoon was quite warm.  Ice cream helped a bit, but we couldn’t resist swimming in the river.  We found a great spot just west of the village and jumped in the water.

I heard recently that the French government applied for UN-recognized heritage status for traditional French gastronomy.  While we didn’t experience the “haut cuisine”, we certainly enjoyed the more everyday sort of cooking.  Crusty baguettes, croissants, pastries seem the breakfast of choice. Crepes and galettes, savory buckwheat crepes, were also delicious treats. River was skeptical of crepes at first, but had an epiphany in this cafe:

Fresh baguettes were available everywhere. The kids even had hot dogs inside a baguette!

I tried the regional specialty in Carcassonne called cassoulet, a white bean casserole which was originally a peasant dish but now is an essential tourist experience.  I hadn’t really though of pizza as a particularly French food, but we ate quite a few delicious wood-fire baked pizzas.  Vineyards cover much of the landscape and we enjoyed many of the local wines.  These windmills were right in the middle of the grapes.

On the coast, much delicious seafood was available.

We also enjoyed the Mediterranean climate.  While we did have a couple of cool, windy days, the warm sun was a nice change from the British weather.  It was raining on arriving back in the East Midlands.  To be fair, it is wonderfully green here in Derby, but I wouldn’t mind visiting southern France again soon!

The castle and fortified town here are truly remarkable, one of the finest examples of military architecture in Europe.

Though I find castles inherently fascinating, we were inspired to visit Carcassonne because of our family’s favorite eponymous board game.  If you haven’t played it yet, you should! We spent the day claiming roads and cities and cathedrals.

Molly got this road on the way into the castle.

But Sage got this one:

River and Molly both managed to get a claim on the castle.

There were even some farms within the city walls.

I’m not sure who won the game, but we had a great time playing!

You can see more of our pictures from Carcassone on flickr.

After procrastinating for quite some time, all the inexpensive airline tickets were gone. We considered taking the train for a while, but eventually decided to drive to Germany. On Friday the 21st, we drove to Folkestone, where the train departs through the tunnel to Calais.

The train was pretty fun! It felt like we were driving into a long space ship. Once parked, an attendant shuts the doors between the train cars and you can walk around. It’s hard to tell that you are in a tunnel under the sea, since there aren’t windows to see the fish and seaweed. Actually, it hardly feels like you are moving at all. It was a nice way to travel.

We spent the night in Reims, France. I was disappointed at how little French I could recall. Spanish words kept leaping from my tongue instead. I think it would eventually come back if I spent enough time listening.

The city was beautifully lit up when we arrived at night. Reims is one of the centers of champagne production and we meant to pick up some bubbly on our way out of town, but we decided against waiting around until the shops opened. This is the Porte de Mars, a Roman triumphal arch dating from the third century.

The French countryside was very beautiful, even more so because there was a heavy coating of frost covering everything.

We met our friends in Tubingen, Germany. I have wonderful memories of the week or so there I spent there in 1994 as part of a semester abroad. It was actually even more charming than I remembered, though these photos don’t do it justice.

We got some treats from a bakery and wandered the streets.

It was great to see our friends again!