Road Trip Day #2

              Today was the second day of le Road Trip.  

          It started where it last left off:  Carcassonne.  We took a self-guided tour and learned all about the walled city, retaining a fraction of the information but having fun in the process.  

         We most enjoyed seeing the "Murder Hole" which was where the defenders dropped rocks down on the invaders' heads.  Oh, and did you know that "boiling oil" as a means of defending a walled city is a myth?!  Never happened!  The defenders of castles and fortresses did not drop boiling oil down on the invaders.  Oil was too expensive and rare to use for that purpose.  Mostly they just threw rocks at them.  One time they threw a pig on the invaders.  That was done for a specific purpose.  The fortress dwellers were running low on food.  But they did not want the invaders to know that the invaders' siege was working.  So they used reverse psychology.  They threw the pig on the invaders' heads, and the invaders figured if they could afford to waste a pig carcass then they must have plenty of food.  So they went away.  That was a good trick.

Holding Our Self-Guided Tour Devices

O'er the Ramparts We Walked

Here We're Getting Crepes

 After that, we drove towards our next destination:  Rocamadour.  It took about 4 hours.  We stopped part way and had some American Sandwiches.  They were unlike any sandwich these Americans had ever seen:  french fries and sausage stuffed into a french roll with ketchup.  They were gross and good at the same time.

Le General With Gross/Good American Sandwiches in Her Clutches

We lunched by a canal.  The wind was blowing like crazy.  A leaf blew in the canal and Ivy jumped in after it.  It was her first swimming lesson.

Before Jumping In Canal

         In fact, the landscape and architecture has really changed.  It's not like Provence anymore.  It looks more like England, or what I imagine England to be.  And they grow food here in big fields, instead of just grapes. 

          We traveled through Toulouse on our way to our stopping point.  Toulouse is a big French city.  They make airplanes there.  And the service at the gas stations is excellent!

She Doesn't Miss a Spot!

          Then we arrived at a B&B outside of Rocamadour.  (You should look it up Rocamadour on the internet.)  It was funny, because when we arrived Le General and the innkeeper started jabbering back and forth in French.  After a few minutes we realized he was English and he realized we were American.  Everyone laughed!

          For dinner we went into Rocamadour.  It is like a town out of a movie . . . maybe Harry Potter or even The Lord of the Rings.  It was nighttime, and we got some good pictures but I'm too tired to download them right now.  We'll show you some pictures of that tomorrow after we finish what we're going to be doing, which is . . . .   
                                             going into grottos!!