Le Midi Papillon Hotel Midi-Pyrénées

Took us a while to find a park last night as we were aiming to stay in Le Rozier which is close to the start of Gorges de Tarn as that was the drive we wanted to do today.

Unfortunately roadworks stood in our way and we took the next best option of the drive through Gorges du la Jonte.

Stunning is the best way to descirbe this drive. I got the ...

... meaningless and only now, the present, was what mattered. Since I will be away for so long, it seems only natural that this would happen. I have never had such a perspective. I was so used to the idea of having a test in 3 weeks, a paper in 4 days, and your whole world is surrounded by constraints. I think that I will have a hard time readjusting to that aspect of life when I get back.

This trip has also given ...

At the Chateau de Malerargues, surrounded by trees everywhere, Sebastian has voice training for the next couple months. The work consists of a mixture of breath, movement, and massage, as well as singing, sounds, and group work. It's hard to describe exactly what goes on, and each day is different. But the isolation, beautiful weather, and delicious fresh foods make for a great place to work, relax, and reflect. So why do so many people have so many nightmares here?

So I'm going to nix Portugal from my plans. I started getting a bad feeling when I called them the other day in order to confirm my arrival and they had no idea who I was. Maybe I spoke too fast, but they seemed really confused by my arrival. I sent an email to the guy and he seemed really mad that my dates kept changing and he told me it wasn't worth their time if I came less ...

... of ravioli, Pringles, M&M's, chocolate covered pretzels, and bread (It was BYOC, Bring Your Own Candy)…Yum. So here I am now, on my first of many many days away from home. I feel as
this is the hardest part, adjusting to the idea that I will be away from home, those I love, for a very long time. Usually, when I come to my Dad's house, it's usually for 3-4 weeks. Now ...

... apparently it is still left over from December snow storms. Even Telus repairs lines faster! One thing that absolutely blew me away were thousands of wild daffodils amongst the scrubby alpine trees. Mixed in with the odd patch of snow I took way too many pictures. The gite we chose was in a small village right on the edge of the park. The owner's English was good which gave me an opportunity to ask lots of questions. She is ...

... The largest of these two villages is called Hauterives, and we really want to go back and make arrangements somehow to stay there at some point. We continued on out of the canyon to the town of Millau which is famous for having the highest bridge in the world. It is a 1.5 mile long bridge that spans across a large valley and the bridge reaches a height of over 1300 feet. It was built just a couple of years ago and is considered an engineering ...

We are still staying in Florac tonight, but we took a beautiful drive to this village today. The Cevennes national park countryside is gorgeous with big, green hills and hardly any homes or buildings...just countryside! We went on a 5km hike to the Chateau Roquedhouil, a nice old home built in the 1500's. There was a very tall sequoia tree that was planed in 1887 and was about 25 feet in circumference.

... area reminded us quite a bit of the wine country of Oregon both in climate and in geography. After lunch we continued on our way to St. Guilhem. We drove through several small villages and did a small hike around one of them (Moureze). Finding St. Guilhem proved to be an adventure as the roads are very small and very badly marked. St. Guilhem is at the base of a canyon and is STUNNING! The scenery had quickly changed to more of a ...

... the train between Milan and Avignon. We passed through much of the Riveria, including Cannes, Monaco, Monte Carlos, and Marseilles. The train track ran right along the sea, and it was a great tour of Southern France. On Sunday, we explored Avignon, which is, like San Gimigano, a walled city built in the Middle Ages. It was also home to the Pope for a quite a bit of that time period, and the huge Palais de Papes (the pope's palace ...