Finally, the last of the last. Carcassonne.

Believe it or not (I don’t think I believe it myself), but I’m about to write the last post on our Eurotrip2016. Took a lot of time, much more than I anticipated, but it’s here. Well, almost. I’m just starting to write it, after all. 

For the last few posts on the topic, we’re already on our way up north. Back home, that is. Having seen parts of France, Northern Spain, Portugal, Southern Spain and Gibraltar, we started our way back up. Through Granada, Cordoba, Avila, Segovia we got to Andorra and after crossing the French border, we got to Carcassonne. At first, we wanted to spend the night somewhere in the neighbourhood and hit the town and the castle in the morning, but it turned out we got there early enough to still see it on that particular day. Since the kids already wanted to head back home, that seemed like a good idea. 

We parked the car and had a good look at the medieval town from the other side of the river. It looked impressive. We crossed the bridge and started walking up to the town walls. It was as I could remember from many moons back – crowded. 

 

First, we walked to the church. We got inside. It looked deserted, but full of mystery at the same time. Or maybe that’s why it felt that way. Then we walked along the town walls towards other parts of the town. We had nothing in mind, nothing in particular. We just wanted to see it. To touch it. To walk the narrow streets, to see the town from the boardgame we play. And that’s exactly what we did.

We didn’t get into the castle itself. We didn’t feel like standing in line to get there. And none of us wanted it desperately to try and convince the others to change their minds. Instead, our kids took us to… 

 

Drumroll (yes, that requires drumrolls, as even in my wildest dreams I couldn’t imagine that with my kids, as young as they still were, I would visit…)… Torture Museum. Yup, you read it right. It was a museum dedicated to all (or at least many) of the tortures that were associated with witchcraft. The accusations, the trials and the tortures. All that stuff. Sure, I got some new ideas of how to torture my husband (that I couldn’t imagine were even possible), sorry hun. I haven’t used them yet, though (for now, my own ideas seem to be enough, thank you very much). But honestly, it was horrible. I never thought people came up with so many ways and so many utensils to hurt other people. And just because, for no real reason. And the kids asking questions "how was that used" made my head hurt, my imagination running too fast and more often than not, I had to lie not to tell them the truth or simply to divert their attention. It is located in nice buildings, though, and some parts were really interesting. I hated the "garden" part of the exhibition the most.

Right after that, making sure there was nothing more we wanted to see or do in Carcassonne, we were headed for our last night, last campsite in France. It was the second time during this whole trip that we had trouble finding a free spot to sleep. We finally found one, in the middle of nowhere. It was big, well organised, everything ok, apart from the fact that... well, I'm old ;) there was a party till 2 a.m. And it was so loud that I couldn't hear my own thoughts. Kids must have been exhausted after all the sightseeing, though, as they slept all the way through the noise. The next day was a long drive. Southern parts of France were crowded, the sky was black with clouds, at times it was raining very heavily. We got to Germany, near Freiburg, where we spent the night. We planned to spend the last night somewhere closer to Polish border. But once we got near Berlin, the kids said that they can sleep in the car if only we promise to drive straight home. So we stopped right before the border for a longer break (like almost two hours). The kids had a good run, we rested, stretched, had coffee, did everything to be ready for next few hours behind the wheel. But we made it. We got home around 1 a.m. With the kitchen renewal not finished yet. Exhausted. Sad that the trip was over. But happy to be back home. 

Yup, that's it. That's it for our Eurotrip2016. So many things happened since then. It feels more than just 2,5 years ago...

Driving, driving... and a colourful sunset

Having seen La Roque Gageac, we spent day four of our #Eurotrip2016 driving. We didn't know where we would get, where we should look for a campsite or anything. We even didn't know whether we were going to spend the night in France or in Spain.

Driving through Dordogne

Finally, we ended up driving to Spain. We knew we were stretching it a bit too far. But we had no trouble finding free spots on campsites, so we hoped it was going to be like that here as well. Spoiler alert - it definitely wasn't.

Relax zones on French highways

Already exhausted and thinking of nothing else but regaining freedom (aka getting out of the car), we got to the first campsite in the area we wanted to visit. The views from there were spectacular. The campsite was on a kind of cliff, overlooking... I don't know, a river estuary? It reminded me of Norwegian fiords a little, though the colours of water, sky, plants were definitely different. I regret not taking any pictures there. But if I got out of the car, the kids would have wanted to do the same. And getting them back in the car would have been impossible. And since the campsite was full, we had to keep driving. Throughthe narrow roads, with lots of twists and turns. Through mountains and forests. We got to the second campsite. Surprise, surprse, it was also full. We definitely did not expect that. How naive of us, I know. And we knew it back then, too.

Anyway, we typed into our navigation the coordinates of the third campsite. Third time's a charm. We were back on the road. Twists, turns, forests, mountains - all that again.

One of the few pictures of our tent (the big one on the right)

We finally got to the campsite. And, again, we hear that, unfortunately, they hav no places left. Seriously, nothing? We're small, we don't take up much space (our full bumper totally contradicts that...). We're with kids. We're sooo tired. We won't stay long. Two nights tops. Or maybe at least for one night...? The receptionist said that they have area where we could set up a tent, but we'd have to leave our car on the car park and not next to the tent (so not  problem), and there's no electricity there (sold! we could live with that).

 The sunset as seen from the on-site playground

So we found our place for the next two nights. With a magnificent view of colourful sunsets over the sea. Just off Bilbao. We could stay. We could relax.

Right after the sunset

The magical Dordogne

The night that we spent in Neuf Brisach was a real test for our new tent. And for all of us as well. Now we know that:

• the tent copes well with (really!) heavy rainfall
• the kids can sleep through a thunderstorm nearby (well, frankly speaking, France decided to show us that they can sleep in (ubearably) loud noise more than once. But more on that some other time).

The day turned out to be relatively short. It started slow and our only goal was to get as close to our French destination as possible. We ended up spending the night in Clermont-Ferrand.

On the third day of our #Eurotrip2016, we finally got to the place I wanted to visit since I first saw the pictures of it. So, more or less, for a year now. Not long, I know. But since it was on our way anyway, we just couldn't miss it. Ok, so what kind of mysterious place am I talking about? I'm talking about Dordogne. And, more precisely, La Roque Gageac.

We got to the campsite early enough to eat dinner, see the village and have a swim in the onsite swimming pool. You can also swim in the river, but we didn't try that.

Our campsite wasn't exactly in La Roque Gageac, so we had to get there by car. The other option was kayaking from our campsite, but we couldn't do it for two reasons. First, they didn't let our daughter on the kayak cause she was too small. And second, it was already too late to kayak to La Roque Gageac anyway. So car was our only option.

Finding a free parking spot wasn't an easy peasy thing, but it was doable. We left the car to take a walk along the river and the main (and only?) street of the village.

There is an option of buying tickets for a boat tour on the river (tickets were already sold out for that day) or renting a kayak to see the village from the water (we didn't even try that, cause we didn't want to raise kids' hope again just to hear that Paulinka is too small). The view from the water is stunning, though. So, if you have the option, don't think twice, just do it.

Instead, we decided to walk the narrow paths leading a little bit up the hill, in between the buildings and away from the most crowded main street. The narrow streets, the light brown buildings in the colour of the surrounding rocks, the green vines and other plants - all that create a unique atmosphere of the place. They made our walk as pleasant to the eye as it could probably be.

At one point we saw a sign leading to a viewpoint. There was nothing else to do, obviously, but to follow the sign. We walked past the gate to the Secret Garden. I'm pretty sure it was the right one, even though not in England. We just didn't meet any birds that could show us where to find the key. We also walked by some old (historic?) buildings. And in the shadow, which was a fringe benefit, but an important and desired one.

When we got to the viewpoint (ok, we might not have actually got to the viewpoint precisely, but close enough), I saw it. It was there. Waiting for me. (Almost) the view that I fell in love with a year ago and wanted to see with my own eyes. And I wasn't disappointed. Which is saying a lot itself.

We couldn't spend more time in the area to explore it further. And, most likely, it wouldn't have been time wasted. But France wasn't our holiday destination (did we actually have any?) this year. Rather a stop on the way. A short one.

Already on the way to La Roque Gageac we saw so many castles and fortresses sticking out of the forests on the hills over River Dordogne. And the same on the way out. La Roque Gageac definitely is not the only charming village in the area. And we will most likely come back one day to explore it a little more. The castles, the river, the gardens, the caves, the villages, the views. All of that.

Have you ever visited Dordogne? 

What would you recommend in the area?