Author: marionvermazen

I am a traveler, hiker, avid reader, Sun alumnus, computer geek, Spanish and French language student, knitter and genealogist. I am retired after working for almost 30 years in the Computer Industry. I live in Reno, Nevada with my husband Duke.

Toulouse, Aquitaine to Conchiglio, Corsica

This morning we set the alarm for 3:30 and ordered a 4:00 taxi because we had a 6:15 flight from Toulouse to Bastia, Corsica.

Arriving in Corsica at dawn

In Corsica we rented a car and drove into the town of Bastia. We parked, walked around a bit and had some breakfast at an outside table overlooking the square.

Breakfast in Bastia

If you look at a map of Corsica you will see a peninsula sticking out of the north end of the island. It’s about 25 miles long and it’s called Cap Corse. We drove almost all the way around Cap Corse on Sunday. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had glorious views of the Mediterranean. The scenery reminded me of California’s highway one. The road was narrow and there often wasn’t much of a guardrail.

The coast of Cap Corse
The road along the coast of Cap Corse

We are staying at a wonderful gite in a small town overlooking the coast. The owner of Maison Batista is friendly and welcoming. She recommended a place down the road for dinner and suggested we hike down to the beach. We didn’t go all the way to the beach but we did hike about half way down.

Maison Batista where we stayed
The grape vines (with grapes) outside our window
Hiking down towards the beach

We enjoyed the sunset from the clock square outside the restaurant where we planned to eat and then went inside and had a wonderful dinner.

Sunset in Canari
Dinner at Bon Clocher

Tour de Faure to Toulouse

The lovely gite we stayed in last night had its own little kitchen. Le Puits de Garival is out in the country but just down the road is a boulangerie so this morning we went down and picked up pastries to go with our morning coffee.

Boulangerie just down the road
Breakfast

We needed to return our rental car in Toulouse by three. So we drove on some beautiful backroads and managed to get to the rental car return place in central Toulouse by about 1:30. They were closed for lunch so we had coffee while we waited.

Coffee in Toulouse

Today was the pride parade in Toulouse so we saw lots of interesting people as we walked to our hotel and later as we walked around town exploring.

Pride parade in Toulouse

We also walked along the Garonne.

Oldest bridge in Toulouse

Our plane to Corsica leaves at six am so we had a late afternoon snack pizza at five and are planning to turn in early.

We have now finished four weeks of our trip and two of our planned five car rentals. Although we will still be in France when we get to Corsica. This definitely feels like the completion of phase two of our trip.

Rocamadour to Tour de Faure

We had a busy and fun day Friday as we headed south. Before we even left our hotel room at Site Notre Dame in Rocamadour, Duke heard a whooshing sound outside. He looked out the window and saw a hot air balloon being filled in the valley below us. It took off and went right by our window.

Hot air being filled below Rocamadour
Hot air balloon outside our window

Rocamadour is built into a cliff. Near the bottom is the village. On top of that is the church and on top of that is the chateau. After breakfast we climbed up to the church and then to the chateau.

Rocamadour, a chateau on top of a church on top of a village.
Rocamadour, our hotel is the white stone building in the middle
Duke climbing to the church

From the top we took a different path back down.

La Porte du Figuier

Our drive south was on windy almost empty roads. We stopped for cheese and a baguette and then had a picnic next to the town hall in the little village of Saint-Martin-de-Vers.

Picnic
Picnic selfie

Just a couple of miles from our destination we did a hike along the Lot River. The Chemin de Halage de Ganil. The hike ended up being a little longer than we had planned because what looked like junctions on the map were actually places where the trail on the top of the cliff was directly above the trail at the bottom of the cliff! I’m pretty sure the trail along the river is an old tow path.

Hiking

Chemin de Halage

We are spending the night in Tour-de-Faure in a gîte in the country.

On the terrace of our gite at La Puits de Garival

Sarlat-Le-Canéda to Rocamadour

Thursday was another lazy day. We packed up and left our Chambre de Hôte. On the way out of town we stopped to do laundry.

It was a short scenic drive to Rocamadour. Rocamadour is a medieval town and pilgrimage site built into the side of a cliff.

Rocamadour

We had to park and walk so that we could find the hotel and get directions for how to get there with the car and also where we could park. It turned out we had to go through a narrow gate and down a pedestrian walkway.

Rocamadour
Rocamadour

I don’t know how many times we have had a best meal of the trip but our dinner was certainly one of them.

We started with duck foie gras for Duke and mackerel for me. Duke and I always trade plates halfway through. Both dishes had perfect combinations of flavors. Now that we have had foie gras several times I realize that some are much better than others which I guess should be obvious.

Duck foie gras, figs and raspberry preserves
Mackerel salad

For main course Duke ordered a filet steak and I ordered venison stew. They were both tender and flavorful. We couldn’t agree on which was better.

Steak with autumn vegetables
Venison stew with a peach on top

Canoeing on the Dordogne

We have had a lot of rainy days on this trip but today we were lucky. It was an absolutely beautiful fall day. We went canoeing 19 kilometers down the Dordogne River from the Grolejac Bridge to the Vézac bridge. The company we rented the canoe from was called Canoe sans Frontière.

This part of the Dordogne is peaceful with cliffs, woods, and fields
Getting ready to put the canoe in the river
The first bridge.

The river was high and flowing quite fast so we didn’t have to paddle much. We only saw one other canoe. It was a peaceful and relaxing trip. We saw three large chateaus towering over the river as we paddled by.

Chateau de Montfort
Another view of Chateau de Montfort
Most of the river seemed to be inhabited only by the birds.

About two hours into our trip we stopped to stretch and have a snack at La Roque Gageac, a village right next to the river.

La Roque Gageac
La Roque Gageac

The owner of the canoes told us to call him as we were leaving the village and he would meet us after the second bridge about thirty minutes later. the second chateau of the trip appeared as we went around the next curve in the river.

Château de Castelnaud

The final chateau was overlooking the spot where we took the canoe out of the water.

Chateau de Beynac

As the owner drove us back to the start in his van we got to practice our French as he told us when each chateau was built, how many fish are in the river and how high the water is because of all the rain.

The van going back to our car.
Our van driver and I think owner of the canoes.