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

Sue and Mark Come to Visit!

Guys, I've been a bad blogger. I'm sorry I've gotten so behind in my blog posts. I decided to take an online Kindergarten teaching course and it really put my blogging to the back burner. I know you've all been waiting anxiously by your computers hitting the refresh button constantly in the hopes to find a new blog post. Well you're in luck because today is the day!  I have lots to update you on, but I'll start with when my sister Susan and her husband Mark came to visit at the beginning of October.

Sue and Mark had a lovely vacation in Paris for a week and then decided to train it on over to visit us here in Toulouse. It was a tight squeeze in our tiny little apartment with four adults for a week, but we managed to avoid killing each other and had a really good time. We went on a few weekend trips, toured Toulouse, had an excuse to eat 3 course French meals, and even got to spend Canadian Thanksgiving together.  The first weekend they were here we took the opportunity to explore some of the surrounding areas of Toulouse. On Saturday we took the train to the beautiful town of Albi. Our friends here in Toulouse had been before and kept telling us we had to go see it and they were right. Albi is a beautiful and charming little town. We walked around all day and saw some lovely sights.

We found this beautiful courtyard garden in the middle of a church

Palais de la Berbie, now the Museum of Toulouse-Lautrec (the famous painter, you might recognize some of his Moulin Rouge Posters)

Beautiful bridges

You can't tell we're related at all.....

Beautiful cathedral

Gorgeous Albi

 We stopped for lunch midway through our tour of Albi at a nice restaurant. Dave and I both ordered steak and we got this.

 While this was indeed delicious, it was not steak. The meat was white and we're pretty sure it was pork. When we asked the waiter about it he insisted it was indeed steak. So, apparently not only is Albi a beautiful city but they also are home to the only cow/pig hybrid in the world. It was the best stork I had ever had.

We had a great day at Albi. The next day we headed to the fortified medieval town of Carcassonne. Some of you may know of the board game Carcassonne, well this is the city it's based on. Carcassonne is a really really cool place with a lot of history. We had a lot of fun touring the city and the castle on our day there. Here are a few pictures.

Carcassonne from a distance

Bridge entering Carcassonne

Dave and I at the entrance to the city

 On Monday, it was Canadian Thanksgiving. In France, they don't celebrate Thanksgiving and as you know I don't have an oven (in fact I only have a two element stove top), but I was determined to have a Thanksgiving celebration. During the day I toured Sue and Mark around Toulouse. We worked up our Thanksgiving appetite and I got to work cooking when we got home. It proved a bit time consuming, but in the end we managed to pull it off. We made potatoes, carrots, brocolli, stove top stuffing from Canada (courtesy of Susan), gravy, and we bought a pre-made chicken at the grocery store. We even had cranberry sauce that Susan brought from home, since they don't have that here in France. It was a fight getting into the sauce since we don't own a can opener because most of the cans here come with pull tabs. But eventually Susan MacGyvered her way into it and we enjoyed it with our turkey. It was a feast and it was delicious.

YUM!

Dessert (and we bought this at the grocery store, sometimes I love France)

Sue, Mark, and Dave enjoying our feast

Sue and Mark left us for a few days to go on a trip to Cahor and the surrounding regions. When they returned they treated us to a wonderful meal at Maison George. The food was delicious and the restaurant had a really cool atmosphere with books and other interesting things on shelves surrounding the tables. It really was like eating in someones home, only fancier haha. Unfortunately we were too busy eating to get any pictures of the restaurant, but we did manage to snap a few photos of our food before we devoured it. It was delicious and a wonderful last night with Sue and Mark.

Delicious caesar salad with all sorts of yummy bits of goodness

Dave's lamb was melt in your mouth good

My chicken. Stuffed with olive tapenade and covered in a cream sauce. Yum!

The next day Sue and Mark were off. We had a great visit and we were glad they were able to stop by during their trip to France.

Until next time...

Au Revoir

Lest We Forget

While in Munich, we had the chance to visit the first concentration camp opened in Germany called Dachau concentration camp. It's hard to describe standing on the grounds of a place that caused so much suffering and took so many lives. It was very moving. With Remembrance Day coming up I thought I would share a few of the pictures that we took. I recommend that if you ever get the chance you visit a concentration camp.  It is hard to wrap your mind around all the pain that was endured, but it is important to remember what went on at these camps. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

The door to the camp, "Work Sets You Free"

Roll call area. This happened daily, took hours or all day, and prisoners weren't allowed to move. Everyone had to be accounted for, which meant dragging out bodies of bunk mates who had passed away in the evening.

This is a bunk room. Each single bed would have to fit 5 to 6 people. Sometimes they would get so crowded that people would get smothered and die in their sleep.

Disrobing room. Victims would remove and leave clothes in this room before entering the gas chamber disguised as a "shower".  Clothing was brought to the disinfecting chamber before the next group was brought in.

This is where the guards would put the poisonous gas (zyklon-b) for the gas chambers. 

This is the gas chamber. Victims were told they were going to take a "shower" and the room even had fake shower spouts in it. During a 15 to 20 minute period up to 150 people could be suffocated in the gas chambers. 

Death chamber, where the dead were brought before they were cremated.

crematorium

A picture from liberation day. If you look closely you can see the bad shape that a lot of the prisoners were in. The man on the bottom right corner with the "X" on this back, who looks like an old man, is only in his 20s. He is so malnourished that his spinal cord is visible at the back of his neck. Our tour guide did not know how this man could still be alive, let alone standing.