Snow Flakes and Sand Dunes

Hey Everyone,

Back in Paris again, and I have to say that the thing that I am most looking forward to is a Canadian keyboard! The letters are all funny over here and I keep putting in Q instead of A and it one of the most frustrating things in the entire world; that is at this moment when clearly the entire world is centred around me and other more frustrating could not possibly exist...

So here is the gist. From Nice I went to Carcassonne, with the intent of seeing Lastours, one of the Cathar Castles, but neglected to think of the possibility of snow in the mountains... oops! So instead had a beautiful but quiet, and extremely cold!, few days wandering around the completely deserted medieval city, thoroughly exploring the castle and ramparts, and trying out some of the local cuisine, such as cassoulet (which is like a stew, made with beans, and duck, and sausage). Brittany, being a braver carnivore than I, also ate blood sausage!

Next it was off to Bordeaux specifically to go wine tasting and hopefully to find some warmer weather on the coast, but alas, we brought the snow with us! Since we couldn't go no a tour until Saturday; and didn't particularly want to hang around a big city all day we hopped a train over to Arcachon! It was definitely a highlight of the trip. We initially just wanted to put our feet in the Atlantic ocean, but were tipped off to take a short bus ride over to the Dunes of Pyla, which were these amazing sand dunes and almost completely deserted (until we got to the top ans saw all the other people who probably thought it was completely deserted too). Arcachon was a lovely little break from everything, it was very quiet, but not in a deserted way. We decided to walk back along the beach, and it was so beautiful to be by the water, and the sun even managed to poke itself out for the day!

After seeing a few wine Chateau's and not really refining my taste at all, we took the train back down to the Mediterranean to a little spot called St. Raphael. This place kind of had a small town wants to be a big city vibe that was more than a little confusing at times. For example the church bells that rang repeatedly but not on any kind of schedule, or all the cars that never seemed to want to drive around the block, rather they would back up on some main street to go back to their turn... strange! The real treat was a day trip over to St. Tropez, and despite the tourist office saying we shouldn't walk 5km to the beach, we did, and again found ourselves on a white sandy (maybe seaweedy) beach with only one or two other people in sight. St. Tropez was an afterthought really, our initial plan was to head into the middle of France, but after facing so much cold and snow we wimped out and went back to the coast, but it turned out to be a fantastic detour.

Now I am back in Paris once more to finish the trip off with the fireworks finale of Sacre Cour, Versaille, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomph, and the Eiffel Tower. Today was spent wandering around Montmartre, Moulin Rouge, Les 2 Moulins, and, thanks to the flip a coin way of walking, seeing the Sacre Cour twice without even realizing we had done a circle... I am still in shock over this. Tonight I am going back to Moulin Rouge to compare the lights to the daytime blandness... it surprised me really how unglamorous it looked in the daytime.

In any case, back to Copenhagen on Saturday and then Canada on Sunday. See you all soon I hope!

p.s. Happy 50th Birthday Mom (I tried to call this morning but no one was home!)