Lost in Melbourne: Lost in France: Part Deux

After picking up the hire car in Toulouse, Paul and I faced the challenge of driving it the 1.5 hours to the small village where we were staying. I should clarify... Paul faced the challenge of driving... I faced the challenge of trying to help him get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, from the wrong side of the car, without screaming at him to get in the lane. Thanks to sat nav and some awesome driving from Paul, we made it here in one piece - no thanks to the crazy mountain roads and the even crazier French drivers!!

Here's the beast that got us home safely. He's posing with our car.

It was close to dark when we arrived at our destination, so all we wanted to do was eat, drink and get to bed. The next morning was for exploring. And what a sight greeted us... something that couldn't be further from what we left behind in Paris... serenity.

A 12th Century church, 16th century houses, narrow laneways and not a soul under the age of 60 - well not out of doors before 8am, anyway.

After getting acquainted with Mas-Cabardes, we decided to try out our French. I should clarify... we decided to try out my French... Paul has the unfortunate habit of freezing everytime a stranger talks to him in French, so his response comes out at "Je ne... Rhiannon?" and then there's a pleading look in my direction.

Those of you who know the back story, also know that our French classes were cancelled, so the sum total of my French is what I can remember from year 8 and what I've tried to learn from my French phrase book on the plane, so we're not exactly going to be holding any intellectual conversations!! I did however manage to order 2 croissants, fig jam, cured ham and a baguette... breakfast and lunch for the day.

With this achievement under our belts, we headed off to the airport at Carcassonne, to collect Megs who was flying in from London. We had our lunch together in another small village on our way back to Mas.

We then investigated the four castles situated on rocky hills above that same village. You can view them first from a look out and then climb up the hills to walk in and around them. If it was in Australia, you wouldn't be allowed that degree of freedom. There were very few hand rails, quite steep drops and barely any warning signs about the dangers of getting too close to the edges.

Here's Megs and Paul in front of the castles from the viewing deck.

Here they are at the start of the walk, oblivious to how warm it was and that no-one had remembered to pack water!

Good job the view was worth the climb!

That was it for the first full day in the south, but it certainly was a good introduction.

On day two, we had a slow start to the day and then headed off for some wine tasting. What we hadn't realised is that most of France shuts for two hours in the middle of the day. So when we were leaving the house, the wineries were closing. Plan B... how about we drive through some pretty villages to kill time until the wineries open??

Turned out to be a pretty good plan. We drove (and sometimes walked) through some lovely villages. Sometimes we even took the scenic route through the villages and drove down some of the backstreets. Now that was a little hairy... way streets that are about this wide...

...and often with blind bends. Fortunately it's not high season, so the streets are pretty deserted.

We eventually made it to a winery, Chateau de Gourgazaud. It didn't look very open, but the scenery was nice, so I took a couple of photos. As I was heading back to the car, a lady cam out of the door and started speaking to me (in French). I somehow managed to convey our desire to taste wines, and she miraculously spoke back to me in English and led us down some stairs and into the cellar that was set up for tasting. Megs and I tasted them all but Paul just had a couple. They were all pretty good - and super cheap. Most were in the 4€ region, and I would say that a similar quality wine in Australia would be at least $15-$20.

After making our purchases, we were on our way again, but not before taking a photo of the donkey for Granny.

The next village on the itinerary was Minerve. We stopped at a number of places on the way, to take photos of the beautiful scenery. It's autumn in the northern hemisphere, so the vines are starting to turn all sorts of shades of yellows and reds.

Minerve is built in the most impractical location - on the side of a cliff. I'm sure it was great for the defences, but it does look rather silly, albeit spectacular.

This is the entrance to the town. I'm not sure which OHS&W officer approved the location of the tower, but I'm sure they lost their job soon afterwards.

There was a cute doggy roaming the streets, as they do in France. It had unbelievable road sense considering the small village it calls home. A car came down the road and it sat and waited for the car to pass and then continued on its journey.

That was the last stop for the day, so we plugged our home address into the sat nav and headed for Mas. Karen, must have some weird French programming, because she took us home via neither the quickest, nor the shortest route and it was definitely not the safest! We found ourselves on ridiculously narrow (barely one car width), windy mountain roads, through forests (where there were logging trucks operating - thank god for the strikes!) with a sharp drop on at least one side and sometimes both. We were very silent in the car for quite some time. Fortunately we came out the other end, after about 30 minutes, and onto the standard narrow, mountain roads that we had grown accustomed to. Needless to say, we all needed a drink when we eventually reached home.

Day 3 saw us heading into Carcassonne markets to investigate the regional produce and think about buying something to have for my birthday dinner that night. Looking soon turned to buying and before we knew it, we'd purchased quite a large amount of cured meats, cheese, breads and sweets.

In the photo, you can see marinated anchovies, olives, smoked sausage, duck and wild boar sausages, cured ham (jambon), two smelly cheeses (whose names escape me), apricot tart, coconut roughs, artichokes and garlic. Okay, so we're a little light on the vegetable matter, but we've got our whole lives to eat vegetables, but only 2 more weeks in France.

Carcassonne is made up of the new city and the old city, which is a partially restored medieval walled city, that is still home to 120 residents.