Wednesday.  But I'm visiting family before I head to home home so it'll be the next Monday or so before you all can actually bask in my presence again.   Starting to pack and clean which is good but not done with essays yet--not good!  Well anyway, here as half-promised is the Dordogne rundown. 

We drove (which is an adventure all its own in France) to the Dordogne region.  On the way down, which mostly just looked the same as driving through Arkansas, we just happened to see a chateau on the side of the road (does NOT happen in Arkansas) and we went to investigate.  There was an old run down Alice-in-wonderland (weird fairytale like) chateau in the middle of a sheep farm.  Too cool.  That night we stayed in a fortified chateau built in the 16th century  YAY!!!   It was so awesome!  It had turrets and a walkway with arrow slots that we walked around at night in the dark.  We were the only guests there.  It was incredible.  I tried to get my friends to do some renaissance dances with me in the dining room but they were bugger butts.  And amazingly it was pretty cheap--not much more per person than staying in a hostel.  It's good to travel in groups sometimes.  We then went to a market in a nearby town, and had a great picnic (the first of several on this trip) in the park with our market fair.  That afternoon we canoed down the Dordogne river.  It was deep, calm, and peaceful; it was bordered by green fields and hills and you know, just for kicks, 3 old fortified castles/hill towns.  This area was the frontier during part of the 100 years war and so one castle we passed was held by the English and then 20 minutes later was the one held by the French.  We walked up the hill to one of those, the chateau de Beynac.  Very steep!  I can't imagine actually living there.  But the views of the valleys were fantastic.  That night we stayed at a farmhouse in the middle of a vineyard.  Lovely.  Next day we went to see the cave of Bara-Bahau which is one of the caves (the Dordogne is famous for them) with ancient cave carvings.  It was hard to see but worth it!    In a little field by the vineyard, I finally got my group to dance a renaissance dance with me to the tune of "What do you do with a drunken sailor early in the morning" since that was all we could remember.  It was lovely.  A very tired group, we went to see OSS 117 in the nearby town of Bergerac.  It is a spoof of 50/60s spy movies and was rather amusing.  The next day we were heading home.  On a lark, we decided to go to La Rochelle.  Actually we ended up on the Ile de Ré but anyway there was a beach and we walked along it, then laid in the sand, then drank beer in the sand and had a picnic.  It was relaxing and lovely.  *sigh* Beaches...  And then we got home safe and sound thank goodness.  The end.

Ah the Dordogne...  View Dordogne river from hill of Beynac.

View of the owner's cottage from the walkway in the chateau.  Mornings rock in the springtime in France.

Crazy random chateau

First encounter with the squat toilet.