Gourdon

We are back from our Christmas trip and I finally have time to get updated on all my blog entries that I've been working on, so over the next few weeks I will be posting quite a few blog updates. Let's get started!

At the end of November, Dave and I spent the weekend visiting our friends Anna and Rich in the small French town of Gourdon. We met Anna and Rich in Toulouse and quickly became good friends. They are also expats and recently moved to France from the UK, although Anna is Russian and Rich is Australian. Together we are a mixed bunch of expats and we always have a lot of fun. They recently decided to make a move to a beautiful little house in Gourdon hoping to live somewhere a little more in the country for a while. When they invited us for a visit we were thrilled to catch up with our friends and visit some of the surrounding French country side (thanks Rich for being our chauffeur!). I fell in love with their little country home and the city of Gourdon. It's a quiet little town, but it's beautiful and full of charm, as is their house. They were awesome hosts and Anna fed us some amazing meals, I'm still thinking about how good they were (yum!). I also can't stop thinking about all the beautiful places we saw during the weekend. We'd be driving along the country side on our way to a sight and all of a sudden we'd drive by an unexpected castle or a some gorgeous view. It was crazy. We crammed a lot of sight seeing into the weekend, but there's still so much to to see in that area.We had such a great time, I can't wait to visit again. The pictures really don't do these beautiful sights justice, they were unreal, but they'll give you an idea!

On Saturday we got up and headed to the Gourdon market. This is a cute little market that happens every Saturday in Gourdon. They sell everything from fresh sea food and vegetables to pastries and breads. There were even live chickens. It was so great and the produce was so fresh and local. I loved it.

Gourdon market, the place to be on Saturday morning

Fish anyone?

After making some purchases at the market we loaded into the car for our first day of adventures.  Anna and Rich took us to a little town called Domme that had an amazing look out with great views. It was beautiful and because it was the off season for tourists, we got the place to ourselves. It was a gorgeous start to the day and only the start of things to come.

Gorgeous view of the country side. You could see for miles.

Gorgeous

Enjoying the view (ignore the bags under my eyes, I had a late night of wine drinking and catching up the night before)

 After enjoying the view, we headed into the town of Domme and stumbled across a church where we found some creepy and questionable statues. For example:

One of the statues. I'm getting a creepy Mr.Burns vibe. 

The church

The town would forever be known as the town of amazing views and creepy church statues. It was a wonderful first stop.

Then we hopped back into the car to head to our next stop, but along the way we ran into this:

Where did this come from? Beautiful

And then we got side tracked again when we ran into this:

Castelnaud La Chapelle

Like I said, driving along and then BAM castle! So cool!

Dave standing where he's not supposed to stand...what a rebel

Eventually, hunger took over and before we got too hangry (anger caused by hunger) we decided to stop in the town of Sarlat for lunch. Sarlat was a bit of a bigger town with some nice restaurants. Unfortunately, in France many places only serve lunch from 12pm to 2pm and if you come any later than you are out of luck. We missed the lunch window so we ended up having lunch at McDonalds (you never let me down McD). Maybe it was the hangry talking, but it was the best McDonalds lunch ever and definitely hit the spot. Refueled, we continued on our adventure to the Lascaux caves. These are prehistoric caves with all sorts of amazing cave paintings. You've probably seen images of the paintings before, there are all sorts of animals and the paintings are really amazing. The real cave had to be closed because the pictures and breath from all the visitors was damaging the paintings, but they have a recreation made exactly the same way and using the same techniques that they allow you to tour. Unfortunately, you can't take pictures but it was really cool. Afterwards, we headed home for a delicious curry dinner that Anna made. I'm still thinking about how good it was today.

The next day we woke up early to get in some more sight seeing before Dave and I had to head home that night. Our first stop was in Gourdon itself. There is an amazing look out where you can see all of Gourdon. It actually use to be the spot of an old castle, but the castle no longer stands. It did still have amazing views.

Then we got into the car and began our journey. On the way to stopped at a bakery to grab some bread and we found this beside it!

How cool is this?

This was across the street. So beautiful.

 We drove along some pretty cool roads too. Look at the cliffs and tunnels!

We ended up at this crazy little town called Saint-Cirq-Lapopie. It is a beautiful town built right into the cliffs. It was so cool!

View of the town on the road coming into it

Dave and I with the town in behind

View from the town

Look how cute the houses are, they don't even look real.

More beautiful views

The boys stood out on this ledge...I cowered in fear from a distance

After Saint-Cirq-Lapopie we headed to an even cooler cliff side town called Rocamadour. This was such an impressive cliff side town and it even had a church on the very top of the cliff. The views were amazing and it was soooo high, I definitely felt weak in the knees at a few of the lookouts.

Driving up to Rocamadour

Heading towards the chapel at the top

The view from above....really, really high

More view from the top

Dave and I at the chapel on the very top

View of Rocamadour from across the way

Dave and I with Rocamadour in the background

 It was a day full of beautiful sights. I can't believe we live so close to these amazing French towns. The French countryside is definitely worth seeing if you ever get a chance. We had a great weekend with Anna and Rich and we can't wait to visit with them again. We made it home just in time for a quick dinner before literally running for our train. It was a short but busy weekend and we definitely fit in a lot of sights. We saw some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. We have a ton of great memories from our weekend, it was wonderful!

Until next time...
Au revoir