Tuesday July1 2008

Tuesday

We arrived on Saturday about 3pm by TGV (high speed train). The train ride was a little bit of a let down. For a lot of the ride there was easy limited views of the horizon as there were either berms or trees very close to the tracks so all you saw was blurs go by. This gave Marco a mild case of motion sickness. Ok, you know how it goes when you are on vacation for a while, time becomes sort of abstract until the day before you leave. Well I be there now. I am writing this now at like 7am while I am in a cute little 7 seater Ford diesel wagon that gets great gas mileage ( probably over 50mpg) and would sell great if Ford were to sell them in the U.S., but of course they don't. Also of note the diesels here appear to be very clean burning. Not once have I seen a black puff of smoke come out of a vehicle like in the US. Also, unlike the UK, the place does not smell like a 3rd world country from the diesel fumes. We are on a 2 hour ride to go and see some prehistoric caves with paintings.


We arrived here at the caves early to try and get tickets, as most of the tickets are pre-sold. We lined up for the 9:30 opening and am 6'th in line.

Got tickets to the 10:15 tour. Yeah. We met a nice couple waiting in line who are from Boston doing a bike tour around this region.

Ok, just went through the cave at font Bu Gaume. Interesting. We saw prehistoric paintings using more than 1 color, mostly of bison with some of horses. All for 6.5 €. each. Hard to imagine these being done thousands of years ago by fire light. In some caves they are created from charcoal these have some kind of other stuff that I can not remember but Marco can.
Just had a wonderful lunch overlooking the Dorgone valley from inside the walled town of Domme.

Now headed for the castle of medieval history which is known as Castelnaud and is a restored castle with armaments and is very cool. We are now officially castled out. So many castles, only one set of feet. Stopping on the way back at the grocery store as we are eating in for a change and making pasta.

Dinner was awesome. Pasta with fresh olive oil, garlic, parmesan cheese, salad, garlic bread, wine. Lots of leftovers so we will have to eat in again.

I hope to get this out this evening with some photos. I typed part in memo pad on my blackberry and part in notepad on my laptop so don't be too hard on my writing as it is not easy typing in a car going 120 km/hr.