You can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free.”
– Étienne de La Boétie (author from Sarlat-la-Cañeda)
We only booked a train from Barcelona going to Gourdon, the closest train station to our place in south of France (Prat, Salviac). However, as it becoming a usual thing in France, there was a train strike! This happened during our wedding and it hassled quite a lot of our guests because of this. This time, it was our turn! >.<
(See my entry of our wedding in South of France, HERE.)
After 2 hours reaching Narbonne, a small tiny town in south of France, they told us that the train can no longer continue anymore and none of them can give us any solution on what to do even if we paid like over a hundred Euros for our ticket, lol! It is still quite far from our place so we did not ask Laurie’s dad to pick us up, we waited for that ONE bus that they promised everyone who alighted the train that will take us to somewhere we don’t know yet, but at least closer to where we are going 😛
To cut the long story short, after spending a whole day ordeal, we arrived Prat at night, just in time for a scrumptious dinner prepared by Laurie’s stepmum, as she always does for us, and after that yummy dinner and few glasses of oh-so-good French wine, we’ve forgotten easily our ordeal 😀
We always try to make a trip at least once a year to visit south of France so we could make some improvements to the little house we are slowly trying to build hands-on. Apart from Laurie’s dad & stepmum lives there, it’s always exciting to go back in that place as there are so many gorgeous places we haven’t been yet!
We did not waste any of our time whilst there, we were too busy trying to make the most of our time in accomplishing works for the house. But of course, as would any other workers, we also have our “day-off” haha! We had one day off to at least some places around.
This time, we went to Sarlat-la-Cañeda and Rocamadour.
(Check some other beautiful places we visited last 2013, HERE)
SARLAT-LA CAÑEDA
Sarlat-la Cañeda or just Sarlat is the most popular town in Dordogne but we always skipped it during our past visits. This time I told Laurie we have to go here because this is where I could finally buy a snowglobe from this area (I only have Toulouse from our 2013 visit!) because my friend told me that she saw one here when they visited this town when they attended our wedding in 2014.
Sarlat is one of the most beautiful medieval towns in this region, it is like the setting of the new film, Beauty and the Beast, where Belle lives! Strolling around the narrow cobblestones pedestrianised alleys of the old town is good enough to explore the town and getting lost is the least of your worries as every corner is worth to see! Whenever we see a car (except police cars) that’s the only time we walk back and explore more.
The square where the Sarlat Cathedral and Hotel Boutei (birthplace of author, Etienne de la Boutie) is our favorite place to hangout whenever we want to grab something to eat. This specific area is how I picture myself inside a medieval time movies. This is btw the film location of the movie, Ever After starring Drew Barrymore hehe.
Indeed, I found snowglobes here! However, I didn’t find anything that is from Sarlat, the snowglobes were Bordeux or somewhere else I haven’t been. Or perhaps I didn’t look around enough. Anyway, bought my snowglobe at our next destination – Rocamadour.
ROCAMADOUR
Rocamadour is a UNESCO World Heritage Site that will soon become a stop on the pilgrimage path of the Santiago de Compostela (a trek I wanted to do but just waiting for that “purpose” of doing it!). Rocamadour has been a popular pilgimage destination for some Catholics because of the Black Madonna shrine that have healing powers.
What attracts me to going here is not the pilgrimage (sorry!) but because this gorgeous medieval town is built on a cliff by the Alzou River! It is called as the vertical village. It’s more beautiful to see at night with the bright lights, but we can’t stay late because Tish prepared a dinner for us, maybe on our next visit, I would like to see it during the night.
As we weren’t there as pilgrims, we skipped going to Chapelle Notre Dame where the Black Madonna is, but we did “climbed” our way to Grand Escalier and we survived it because we know that our lunch is waiting for us at the end, lol!
It was a pleasurable day-off for us freeing ourselves with the “construction works” for our house. If we keep doing this every time we visit, I do not really mind doing more muscle works so long we see one or two gorgeous towns around south of France. Everybody deserves some time off work right? 😛
Unfortunately, we have not finished the house yet as 10 days seemed to be not enough. Hopefully this year (2017) we would be able to finish it already. And I look forward to that day when we will feel fulfilled with the fruit of our own labour ^.^
