Europe Fall 2021 – Page 7

Conchiglio to L’Île-Rousse

Navigating on Corsica is much easier than navigating in mainland France. Basically we just follow the coast. Today we drove south along the west coast. We left the Cap-Corse department and are now in Haute-Corse department on Corsica. As we drove south the surrounding became less rural. The roads were a bit wider and the scenery continued to be spectacular.

Tonight we are in the Best Western Santa Maria Hotel in L’Île-Rouse. We are right on the ocean. The water is unbelievably blue and clear.

The hotel has both a beach and a pool. We tried them both out.

Around 7 we went for a walk to enjoy the sunset and check out restaurants.

We decided to eat at L’Épicure.

We started with mussels.

Then shared Pasta Del Mare and Fritto Misto di Mare. It was all fabulous, fresh and very filling.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The grape vines (with grapes) outside our window

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

From the top we took a different path back down.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30	31

	beautiful030f64feaf on Puerto Madryn Day 3
	beautiful030f64feaf on Trevelin Day 2
	lindalovesbooksblog on Tandi to Buenos Aires
	lindalovesbooksblog on Tandi Day 2
	lindalovesbooksblog on Reta to Tandi