Hotel De France is a very basic hotel in Ax-les-Thermes, where you get a good ratio between price and quality as the hotel is very cheap. The hotel is a traditional hotel which you find in some small mountain villages. The service was nice and friendly and they had an okay breakfast. The town itself is small and agreeable enough, but there's little to see once you've wandered a couple of streets in the quarter surrounding the main street, avenue Delcassé. In Rue de l'École and rue de la Boucarie retains a few medieval buildings, and above place du Breilh, the church of St-Vincent is of architectural interest for its Romanesque tower. Just across the road you can dangle your feet for free in the Bassin des Ladres, a pool of hot sulphurous water which is all that remains of the hospital founded in 1260 by St Louis for soldiers wounded in the Crusades. The village is ideal for starting a trip to Andorra from the early morning and waking up in these surroundings is a treat. Parking at this hotel can be a fun experience; it is like playing a game of Tetris.

need to sleep somewhere...

We stayed in this little mountain town of southern France with Bob and Maggie, my new friends =o)  Okay, so this was the first time that Wendy and I had ever met them, but they were the type of people that you always want to be a part of your life.  Not knowing anything about us, Bob and Maggie welcomed us as though they had known us for decades.  After a delicious dinner, some Irish whiskey, and lots of silly conversation, we spent the night at their home.  Though the next morning brought some rain, we all (including their dogs Wilson and Harry) took a walking tour through the town, seeing the mill, the church, and some horses.  It was like walking in a dream ~ I never knew places like this existed.  There are no words to describe the attachment and connectedness I felt to this place.  We had another dinner at their home with some of their neighbors, and although they only spoke french (and therefore I couldn't understand much of what they said), their neighbors were equally friendly, welcoming, and accepting.  I actually felt as though I belonged, and leaving this town was probably the most difficult thing I had to do on this entire vacation.

What an amazing little town!!!  Medieval buildings and homes that were constructed hundreds of years ago still stand, representative of the pride of the town's inhabitants.  While walking through the little alleys and visiting the shops, historical aspects of the town were evident everywhere.  An enormous replica of the rosetta stone sat in a courtyard tucked away from the main marketplace, and it's french translation was scrolled across a glass window nearby.  The shop vendors were incredibly friendly despite my pathetic attempts to speak in half english, half broken french.  Oh, and their pain au chocolat was better than anywhere else!  Yummy!

My husband had gone to Gramat to work with the Centre d'Etudes de Gramat a few times, but this was my first trip there with him. It was also our first trip to Paris together; he had been once without me, and I had been a few times without him.

Gramat is a small town in the Lot departement in southwestern France. On this trip we flew into Paris and took the train immediately to Gramat. This was a short trip, so we stayed at the company's favorite hotel, Le Relais des Gourmands, which luckily for me is a 2-star Michelin-rated relais, and to date is one of my favorite places in the world to eat. It is run by Gerard and Susy Curtet. By the time our train came in it was already quite late, and we hadn't eaten and the kitchen was already closed, but Susy happily drummed up a ham and butter (oh my god, the butter) sandwich and asked how Alex's boss was and we knew we were at home away from home.

Alex worked during the day, so after I had poked around the little town center I realized that not much sightseeing was going to get done on foot. This region of France is on a plateau, through which rivers cut deep ravines, and in between rivers lie some of the richest farmlands in France. This is the home of duck, foie gras, cassoulet, chestnuts, walnuts, truffles, and wine. This is a gourmand's dream come true.  I needed to rent a car. At this point I had only taken one semester of French, and being in a small town in rural France didn't help my nervousness about the task at hand. There was one little gas station at the edge of town that rented cars so I went in and tried my best. It was comical, really, as it took maybe 5 minutes for me to explain how long I had had my US driver's license, but the lady at the counter (and the two other people in the shop who tried to help) were so, so kind and patient, and in the end I had rented my first car in Europe.

The most popular thing to see in the area is Rocamadour (that's funny, this Wikipedia link has a photo from the exact same vantage point as in my photo above!). From the approach you don't see it coming until the very last minute - any rise in elevation goes unnoticed, until all of a sudden there's a giant hole in the ground (like the Grand Canyon, but obviously much smaller...and greener) with a city built into the cliffside. It's a truly beautiful place, rocky and green, but is a bit of a tourist trap, as pilgrims and coach tourists pour in by the busfull. I made the mistake of parking at the top of the abbey, not knowing that most of the town (and the best point at which to appreciate the situation of the town) is in the bottom of the causse. I did not recognize this mistake until I had to hike back up the cliff to get back to my car. To get to the abbey I passed the stations of the cross, which had some pilgrims making the route on their knees as they do in places like Fatima in Portugal or Lourdes to the west. The town itself is very cute, truly medieval, but lined with souvenir shops and a little train that shuttles pilgrims up and down the cliffside (another trait it shares with Lourdes).

Another breathtakingly beautiful site in the region is the town of St Cirq Lapopie, again on a cliff, this time in the Lot river valley. I got a very good feel for the beautiful Quercy countryside because I got lost on my way to St Cirq and ended up taking the tiniest country backroads to get there. The river valley has a road the runs along the river on the opposite bank from St Cirq which goes through beautiful little towns lined with flowers and rocky tunnels. Eventually you spot the city perched impossibly up the cliffside. It too is full of flowers, medieval buildings, but with less crowds and a view of the whole pastoral vista of the valley, with farms, little bridges and roads, and the river winding through it, with a few kayakers here and there.

I also made a stop at a nicely preserved castle, whose name I can't remember for the life of me. Oh, Château de Castelnau-Bretenoux. It tops a hill overlooking the lands that were presumable owned by it's medieval owners, and was fairly recently owned by an opera singer who furnished the rooms with all kinds of beautiful, if incongruous, antiques.

I have certainly fallen in love with this part of France, as has Alex, and from what I understand a growing number of Englishmen looking for vacation homes. The most frustrating part of this particular visit was that food shops abound, but I was only staying in the hotel (and Gerard does make the best cassoulet I've ever had) (and croissants) and couldn't justify buying a whole confit duck leg sticking out of a ramekin of fat. That problem was remedied on my next visit, when I had access to the kitchen at AASC's rental gite.

Photos from Gramat and Paris:

http://www.nekophile.com/gallery/v/mbixler/album60/

Alex headed to France about 2 weeks before we did, so my mom, aunt, and I flew together into Toulouse. It was HOT. We had a nice little hotel in central Toulouse, only a few blocks from Place Victor Hugo, which has a huge, very nice indoor market and some great food boutiques nearby. Alex met up with us there and we stayed for 2 nights before he headed back to Gramat and we moved on to Lourdes.

This was my third time in Lourdes, and my mom's fourth or fifth. Every time I've been to Lourdes it has been a totally different experience from the others. The last time I was here was when I was 20, and the negative qualities about Lourdes (and the Church in general) really stood out to me at that time. Those things are still there, though - don't get me wrong - but I guess I'm more tolerant of them now. At least I have a better sense of humor about it now. It's like Disneyland for Catholics. Prices are inflated everywhere and you can't spit without hitting a souvenir shop full of glow-in-the-dark Virgin Mary magnets (I got 6 of those for my coworkers). It seems particularly wrong when you consider that the customers are usually old, often sick or crippled people who saved all their money to come here. However, they are the most willing consumer victims ever. These people love it! They are full of joy and will cherish forever their giant 3D plaque of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

I don't necessarily believe that God made this spring any different from any other spring, but this time my eyes were much more open to the wonders that faith can do for people, regardless of whether than faith is grounded in anything real. People are amazingly happy in Lourdes. So happy that they could almost get out of their wheelchairs or cots and dance around. The faith is incredibly moving. I think this revelation is due in a large part to spending 4 days there; previously we had only stayed 2 days or so, which doesn't really give you time to talk to people. This time we were sitting in the rotunda (they're awfully good about having alot of benches around...and toilets) and I started chatting in broken French with this volunteer who was assisting an elderly man in a wheelchair. She was so incredibly cheerful. I think she had experienced some healing of her own in the past, and now that her children were grown she volunteered for some time each year at Lourdes. There are so many volunteers - it's absolutely inspiring. Aside from their cute little nurse outfits (the guys wear some sort of cape, too), there are volunteers of all ages pushing around hundreds of disabled persons and running around with blankets and all kinds of things. Many are Knights of Malta, who you can spot by the cross patch they wear, fulfilling service requirements. There is a large residence for disabled persons, staffed and funded by charity. Lourdes is a truly fascinating and unique place.

We also had enough time to see the rest of the town, which I didn't even realize existed. It's a little town, modest and non-descript. The natural beauty of the Pyrenees is sadly overlooked by the basilica crowds. I found the woods and river and hills to be really wonderful - a breath of fresh air - and even the train ride out of Lourdes to the Bay of Biscay was blissfully relaxing.

Paris had me burnt out. There are only so many sights one can see before seeing anything else becomes tedious, and I definitely hit that point. And there are only so many kilometres you can walk before you become fed up with a city and all its old-world wonder. I figured a visit to Toulouse would have me ready to see the rest of Europe again, and it sure worked wonders.

I stayed with the B's: Jacques, Monique, and their three daughters (Norma, Laura and Anna). I could not have had more awesome hosts. They fed me fantastic toulousian cuisine, showed me everything that a tourist would never find out about Toulouse, and enabled me to generally have a heck of a time.

On top of all the stuff we ended up doing, I got to watch their movies. I suspect this visit is best divided up into the movies that were seen. First off, it was The Science of Sleep, which had a neat cameo of the bridge right beside my hostel in Paris. Surreal.

The next day, I tried (sleepily) to watch C.R.A.Z.Y., but the day was more notable for my chance to see French civil society in action. There was to be an AG (general assembly) at Norma and Laura's high school, which had been on strike for the past week (and would still strike for another week and a bit after that). This is an event where the students that care show up and vote on whether or not to keep blocking the school. Things were beginning to get a bit frustrating for the graduating students: the strike meant each class missed was one they'd have to catch up on by themselves, and it was fairly unlikely that their standardized final exams would be pushed back yet again (there was a week-long strike earlier in the year). The next day, the 15th of May, we all took part in a huge rally through the middle of town called a 'manifestation' (or manif for short). I am as of yet unsure of its' purpose.

That night, a few of us went to go check out The Darjeeling Limited at Theatre Utopia in a nearby town. Theatre Utopia itself was beautiful, and had a great little restaurant in lieu of a popcorn booth. The show was great too. The real surprise, though, was when we got back outside: it became more and more evident that it had hailed while we were busy watching the show.

I have failed, until this point, to comment on the weather, since it has been perfectly wonderful, and therefore not really worth commenting on. But the weather had a turn for the worse everywhere in France once I arrived in Toulouse, making film actors in Cannes, tourists in Paris and Canadians in Toulouse uniformly soaked. With even less precedent than the bad weather, the hail came, and it seemed like there must have been a foot of it. I hope to be forgiven for thinking that I was back in Canada. The leaves of the trees were totally 'déchicoté' (a hilarious word for 'shredded') and the mess was on the ground everywhere in downtown, historic Toulouse.

We were all terrified for Jacques' tomatoes, and for the pingpong table that we'd played with during the (sunny) afternoon but failed to stow away. I guess there's some magic emanating from my ridiculously heavy and gigantic backpack, because even though hail had tormented the plants of Moniques' sister a few hundred yards away, the B's property was totally untouched.

On Friday night, we watched The Usual Suspects. That is all that my scattered notes tell me about Friday.

Saturday was quite good. We first went to the médiathèque where Jacques works, and got the tour and borrowed a few books. Bibliothèque is the french word for library, and 'biblio' is just not enough in this 'média' age. There were places to watch DVDs, it had an awesome comic book section (I read 'Ghost World'), and was generally an awesome library.

Later, Norma and I and a couple of her friends (twins, of all things) made it to the rugby game. Predictably, Toulouse dominated.

Sunday was time for a trip to Carcasonne. Most memorable was the trip along the walls of this gigantic fortress that had never been taken by force (since it was kinda in the middle of nowhere, mostly). The guide was hilarious, and performed splendidly despite all the giggling from the girls about his accent. Seriously guys. haha. Later, we ate at the aforementioned aunts' house, and learned of our luck with regards to the hail.

My last day in Toulouse was Monday, and I tried to see all the sights I'd have to see if I were to hold on to my tourist cred. Unfortunately, quite a few of them were closed, it being a Monday and all, but I still got to see the Basilica by St Sernin (hell, it's probably called the Basilica St. Sernin), and the other massive religious structure whose name I neither wrote nor remembered, but which had a smashing good exhibit on ancient Middle Eastern science. Of interest: Algebra was invented by middle eastern mathematicians, and sorbet has its' roots there too. Who knew. Some of the stuff was mildly hilarious though, like the maps: Europe is charted in all the realistic detail of one of Picasso's later works (I can say things like that now 'cause I went to his museum =D ).

To cap off my week in Toulouse, we watched La Haine. A must see (though Norma would probably say otherwise).

In summation, thank god for Toulouse.

I stayed in Plagne Soleil for one week last year (2007), and the location was great - not at all heavily built-up, a nice square with children building an igloo in the centre and sledging down an embankment (I planned to join them later?), some small shops (including a grocery store of the Spar variety), a few bars/restaurants and the accommodation. Perfect. I had felt a little worried when the rep on the coach said rather dramatically: "well, for those of you staying in Plagne Soleil, this is it. Everything is in this square". But it turned out that everything you need is in that square - and for anything else, Plagne Centre is about 5 minutes away on the 3 bubble-lifts across the piste.

For more info on where I stayed and things to do there erc, see my review!

As we travel further the south, the bridges start to become longer and more impressive until we reach the big one... Millau. For a mere €6.80 you can drive across the newly constructed Viaduc de Millau(View the real-time webcam of the bridge here). Before crossing we stopped in the service area. The service area, still under construction, consisted of a stopping point to get a view of the bridge and of the town of Millau, a tourist information office, and couple of blocks of toilets. These toilets were unlike the toilets of good old GB. There were some sort of mutant toilet that appear to involve squatting. We were luck that the disabled toilets had the type of bowl we were used to.
While Nick and Anna have a rest, me and Kerry feel energetic and we climb to the top of a huge steep hill to the view point. The path up to the view point isn't finished and gravel on a hill isn't a good idea. More than once we nearly fell flat of our backs. The steps they have built out of railway sleepers are very steep with no hand rails. Very dangerous. We make it to the top, take a couple of pictures, see an eagle (or what looks like an eagle) and head back down to ground level, and set off across the bridge towards the southern coast.

Heading down through the mountains, we play a game of "Holding Your Breath While Travelling Through A Tunnel", which is immense fun unless you're driving and going dizzy through lack of oxygen. We leave the M75 near Montpellier and park up on a retail park outside of a DIY store in order to consult the camping books for a place to stay the night. As we sit, we get a few funny looks from people who we assume are wondering why a car fully of englishmen (and englishwomen) are sitting in a DIY store carpark in southern France. Just as one of comments that there are probably no other British people anywhere near this place, a car with the GB stick pulls past in the carpark and gives us a wave. We decide that tonight we will stay in the seaside resort of Valras-Plage and head off in that direction.

    We had a 2 hour stop over at Toulouse and we ate our lunch there :) after which... we take some pictures and enjoy the place then go back to the train going to Carcassonne..

    After 4 days of roaming around the city of Paris, we had this side trip to Lourdes with our 2 professors. We are total of 9 who went to Lourdes via Train. We leave Paris at around 11pm and arrived Lourdes at around 7am. We had our breakfast at the train station and walked to the Catholic Church to see the beauty of creation. Our other group members who choose to have their side trip at Brussels, Belgium had requested us to give them holy water and we had gotten them some. We roam around the church and headed to our next destination after 4 hours. 

The battle of verdun was a major battle in WW 1 between Germany and France.   It lasted for almost 10 months.  This blog is of when me and my buddy Rainer visted the battlefield back in Feb 07.  Many forts and trenches still remain today.  This is the first in my battlefields blog series.  Later ones will be,  Ypres and flanders fields in Belgium, Battle of the Somme and Vimy ridge in France, Wateloo, Battle of the bulge, Fort Eban Emael in Belgium, and then the Normandy Beaches. 

The small village of Montségur, with its craft studios and souvenir shops (indeed, a chance to meet tourist busses in summer!), nestles at the bottom of a high crag where a ruined castle perches, silhouetted above a white cliff. The castle once provided refuge during the Albigensian crusade.

The siege began in May 1243. Inside a few hundred Cathars endured 8 months of siege and bombardment, before a clemency agreement in exchange for surrender was negociated. But the Cathar faithfull would not betray their cause and, as a result, when the castle was opened to the catholic forces, some 225 were led out to a field below a fort and burnt alive. A small monument at the foot of the hill reminds of this massacre.

A handfull of Cathars slipped out of the encirclement during the siege and, legend has it, they carried some sort of collection of valuables with them. Within time the story of the lost treasure of the Cathars grew. See for this under "Rennes-le-Château" in this trip.

I would never have visited Montaillou, if I hadn't read the book of René Weis, called "The yellow cross: the story of the last Cathar's rebellion".

The Cathar religion formed a serious threath for the catholic church in the 13th century. The repression by the Inquisition took the lives of thousands of Cathars. Despite the brute persecution this brave sect floorished for the last time between 1290 and 1329 in the hamlet Montaillou. The statements done in that time by Montaillou inhabitants to Jacques Fournier of the Inquisition, bishop of Pamiers (and later pope Benedict XII), have been well kept in the Vatican archives for almost 700 years. The records were so precise that every aspect of the villagers' lives from them, from the minutiae of domestic economics to the details of their sexual habits, could be recreated. Weis was even able to draw  a map of Montaillou with the location of houses and their owners.

Nowadays, only the remains of the castle are left upon the hill. Some excavations next to the ruins show the location of some medieval houses. At the foor of the hill is the present village, including the church with a graveyard where you can read the same surnames on the headstones as in the old records...