French Alps

We left Biarritz, recharged and ready for our drive to Carcassone. It was a roughly 4-hour car ride and it was nice to make it to our little apartment for a couple of nights. We were situated just outside and below the Ancient City of Carcassonne. Our first night we explored up an old footpath to the city walls. The castle was lit dramatically and there was practically no one else around. The kids were very impressed by the size of the city itself, quite small compared to Toledo in Spain, but the combination of the warm night air, the warm lights highlighting the walls and casting shadows from nearby trees made it seem it seem mysterious and dreamlike. It looks like an archetypal castle and walled city on top of a hill overlooking a river and valley below. It took us about 15 minutes to walk around the city itself. During the day we could explore the chateau and gothic cathedral, which had all been renovated under the guidance of the same man who restored Notre Dame in Paris.

Another long drive to Les Arnauds, France, a small hamlet outside of Grenoble in the French Alps. Betsy and Kent Quinn were kind enough to offer us their French farmhouse as a place to stay. The farmhouse is located at about 1000m (3000 feet) altitude. The weather is quite a contrast from where we have been, it is warm during the day but at night the air is cold and it is necessary to put a fire in the stove to heat up a room or two. The kids are enjoying the fresh air outside of the city, cutting firewood, taking a morning hike, and cooking in a wood fired stove. The neighbors are very friendly here and everyone has offered us a hand with getting the house opened up or helping us get the first fire started in the stove. Today we explored around the lake nearby catching crawdads and building rock castles. We had a great lunch with a neighbor, Marc Ollivier who is a retired Sociologist and happened to have lived in Morocco for 15 years. He is now working on a documentary about Agribusiness in Morocco and how it is wreaking havoc on the local environment and economy. A very interesting man and we enjoyed the conversation and the lunch! We also had the opportunity to visit with other neighbors like Annie, Francoise, Samantha and Rebecca. They made arrangements for Sam to visit Samantha’s “English” class for an hour at her school. Sam really enjoyed it liked being in a classroom with other kids. The weather has changed over the course of our week and there was snow on tops of the mountains when we drove down to La Mure to do our laundry. We are getting ready to drive to Stresa, Italy with a stop in Turin on the way. We have enjoyed our reprieve from being on the road and some home cooked meals. We will miss Les Arnauds but are excited to move on to the next adventure.