in Carcassonne

I am now in Carcassonne - the largest walled medieval city in Europe. Free wifi in the house! Yay for internet. I will send a post later after my tour of the city.

today is 4-22-10

I have finally gotten internet via my laptop.

I am in a little hotel/restaurant using their wifi after having a very awesome dinner tonight.

I sprung for the awesome whole fresh foie gras which I've only ever had once before. Everything was excellent, even the mushroom soup amuse bouche! Plus wifi, what more could you ever ask for (a smaller bill maybe).



I'm super tired now. But as recap of today - went to prehistory museum, then chateau de Beynac, then chateau de Castlenaud. I don't think I did all that much, but am exhausted anyway. Maybe it was when I thought I needed to get my car towed because i got stuck in a ditch, but then got out of it with creative forward and backward action. I also broke the front of the car, but then fixed it. I'm a superstar!!

Leaving the Dordogne tomorrow :( And I didn't even get to have a last dinner on my little farm with the nice family (the farm people were taking a day off). But still, had great food. Off to Carcassonne tomorrow.

From 4-21-10

Today I am exhausted. I was on the river almost all day – 6 hrs, 25km from Carsac to Beynac. And unfortunately have the T-shirt and watch tan to prove it (I hope to remedy this at least in Mexico). It was a fantastic kayak ride. I took over 100 pictures along the way, of the beautiful scenery and castles along the way. I know that this is the river along which a great deal of hundred year war took place but really, how many castles can be built during 100 years? The first castle I passed was Montfort which apparently is now the private residency of some prince of Kuwait. I thought – gee, I could really use a private castle too. I stopped in the “cutest in France” town of La Roque-Gageac for lunch and ate my favorite salad (gizzards and foie gras) while enjoying river views from my terrace. It made me wonder if I would have been happier staying in the riverview room in La Roque instead of on my farm but I realized that my farm is a totally awesome experience – more later. There is a strong current along the entire river so for most of it you can just glide, or spin around as I did for the 360 panorama view. When I finally reached the destination point, I agreed with another kayaker that we could have used a couple more hours still.

After the kayak ride, I needed to something that was very low-key. Well, I ended up deciding on visiting a goose farm where they make foie gras. I took the farm tour and saw their walnut trees (over 7000 – the nuts are cracked by old people :P), saw their free-range geese, saw their baby geese, and saw them force-feed some geese. These geese get raised free-range and then at the age of 2 are force fed for 3 weeks – corn mixed with water, fed 4 times a day, about 450g corn each time I think. They go from 3.7-4.1 kg to 7-9 kg during this time and are then killed and sold as foie gras, meat, fat, and feathers – very efficiently used. Only the blood and some bones get wasted. Not for the squeamish – they stick a tube down the goose’s throat and use either a manual machine or an automatic machine to force feed. When this is done by hand, the person massages the corn down the goose’s throat so it does not choke on it. Kinda gross, but foie gras is so yummy.

Dinner tonight was foie gras of duck, duck breast with baked potato and green beans, and peach and meringue pie. Oh, I forgot to mention that there is always a house special aperitif with every meal. Today was a cherry liquor – very yummy. So the cool thing about my farm – we all sit at big tables like a big family for dinner. I’ve been sitting with this family of 5 since my arrival and it works out that we’re here for the same number of days. I’ve gotten to know them very well and we seem to enjoy each other’s company. Today, they bought a bottle of wine and invited me. How nice! Then when the kids went upstairs to sleep they came and kissed me good-night too – cute!

Tired, one more day in lovely Dordogne. Great place, really beautiful, but driving here is crazy – so many crazy turns and my GPS likes to seek out the tiniest streets ever (though really, without my GPS I would never have made it, the signs don’t correlate with the streets I’m looking for, ever).

From 4-20-10 extended

In my short café/cellphone version, I neglected to mention a number of important details.

First of all, to all my foodies out there – the menus.

When I arrived at the farm I’m staying at – yup farm, I’m playing rustic – it was practically time for dinner. You see, there is the demi-pension option at my farm, where breakfast and lunch are included and I figured I’d try that out. Well, dinner the first night was a bit overwhelming to say that least. As I mentioned, it was duck-themed – duck pate for appetizer, duck confit for the main course served with mashed potatoes made with duck fat, followed by a cheese plate (3 different cheeses), then a pineapple tart. After this first meal, I really wasn’t sure if I could do this demi-pension thing. At this rate, these meals will kill me. It’s ok though, there was a vegetarian theme today. I will live. For lunch today, I had a salad with gizzards, lardons, and foie gras – a more perfect salad one cannot find – complete with my own little duck (see picture). For dinner at the farm, we had tomato soup, white asparagus quiche with salad, a plate of 5 cheeses, and a chocolate mousse (divine!). I’m feeling a bit more comfortable with the country living today. Plus after dinner I did not want to pass out from fatigue after a long day spent flying and driving like yesterday.

Speaking of driving – I really need some help. I just don’t get it. I would totally be fine if it weren’t for all these stupid hills getting in my way. Stupid gravity, making it much more difficult to drive standard.

So, let’s see, what more can I tell you about what I did today. I started out my day by going to Grotte de Font de Gaume – one of the few remaining authentique prehistoric caves. It was an amazing experience. You walk in following the dim flashlight of your tour guide and pass through narrow and low-hanging cave passages, being careful not to touch the walls of course. Then as your eyes adjust, you tried to make something out but you see nothing. Then the guide traced outlines with his little laser pointer and you get it. All of a sudden, you see all these animals running across the walls. Some of the painting are really realistic and have a great deal of details. I was impressed. Oh by the way, these painting were painted between 18,000 and 10,000 ACE (new term for BC).

My second stop was La Roque St-Christophe – a 1km chunk of rock that has been carved by a river and thus has a little inset region. Apparently, people made their homes in this little inset from 25,000 ACE until the middle ages. It was cool to see what they could do with a little carved out piece of rock.

My final stop of the day was Lascaux II – the recreation of Lascaux – the original prehistoric painting cave that has been closed due to tourism-induced destruction of the paintings. A quick 40min tour of some massive cave paintings. My favorite was big bull #3 but apparently he’s just not very popular because there is neither a postcard of him nor is he included in the pictoral Lascaux II souvenir book :(