Six days in one blog

OMG! I can't believe how busy I am on my vacation. We left Avignon on Wed. morning and drove to Carcassonne. We stopped outside Nimes at the Pont du Gard for a break. That was really an amazing sight. When we read Story of the World, vol. 2 last year, there was information about the aqueducts. Well when you see one of these Roman aqueducts, you have a whole new appreciation for these Romans and their skills. They had no power tools, no cranes,and only elementary things, yet they created these amazing engineering structures. Meanwhile, in this day and age, you can't buy a kitchen appliance that's built to last ten years. Go figure. The fun part of the trip was you are just driving along and you say "wow, look at that medieval fortress over there, or, hey! Do you see that castle on the top of the hill?". We made it to Carcassonne and the hotel was great and we walked about a half mile, and then this huge fortress just appears on the horizon. Carcassonne is a medieval, walled city, and it is so cool. I don't care how old you are, when you see this thing, you are just giddy with awe. It's enormous!

We had dinner in the old city and I had some of the most amazing food of my life:). I ordered a tomato and mozzarella salad and they brought me a tart with roasted tomatoes that had small cubes of mozzarella with a pesto sauce poured on top, I have never had anything like it yet I have had dozens of tomato and mozzarella salads in my life. We got lost walking around and walked the entire perimeter of the fortress at night. It was a very cool thing to do in the dark. The kids had a blast. We all did, really:). We spent the whole day there the next day. Well, Tiffanie and I did. Sean took the kids after lunch back to the hotel for nap time. Tiff and I went into the castle, and learned a lot about the architecture and building of the city. Then we went to the Basilica of Saint Nazairre. The Basilica was so beautiful I kept weeping. Seriously, it was beauty beyond words. I could not stop taking pictures. I took over 150 pictures of the castle, artifacts and the church. I took pictures until my camera shut itself off and said "re charge batteries".

I really loved Carcassonne. The new city, in the valley, (which is about 200 years old) had parts that looked like uptown New Orleans or Marigny, but on a much larger scale. The walk to the train station was a good hike, but there was a park right in front of the station where we picnicked, and let the kids play. The train ride was lovely, scenic, uneventful, and successful by napping standards. Both kids napped:)

I was shocked at how busy and large Avignon is. It's nothing like the sleepy little village of Annecy. And guess what? Avignon has a wall around it too! it's a wall from Roman times too! I asked our tour guide today, how many French cities have walls around them and he said dozens. It's so funny. We were driving along, and I am yelling " what's that?" And our guide is very dismissive, "oh, that's just some ancient roman ruins from about two thousand years ago," and he just keeps driving, and doesn't even bother to stop. (He did stop later so I could get pictures).

I'm just too tired to finish tonight. I'll finish our adventures and get caught up tomorrow!