Brousse le Chateau

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  Brousse-le-Chateau, Midi-Pyrénées, France
Friday, May 8, 2009

We have made it to the village of Brousse le Chateau. WOW!!!! That is the only word to describe how cool this place is. The "chateau" is actually an old castle on a cliff and the village is built beneath and leading up to it. The castle was built in 1040 and the village bridge (which is still used!) was built in 1366. There is a small mountain river that runs through the center of the village.

We are staying beneath the castle in a little inn called Le Relays du Chateau. The lady who runs the inn is the 3rd generation of her family to own and operate it. Our room looks out over the castle and a small river. We love this place!

The inn has a small restaurant - the only place to eat for miles. There is also a patio for lunch that is directly beneath the castle and which overlooks the small mountain river. The food in the restaurant is excellent. Last night John had a plate of sheep's brains!!!!! YUCK! They are a local specialty of the area. Actually, the brain was broken up into pieces and sautéed in butter and herbs. It looked like chicken nuggets and actually tasted pretty good- yes, I tried a bite of it too. John liked the stuff and ate the whole portion.

Anyway, we are staying here a couple of nights and exploring the area on foot and by car. The roads continue to be a challenge, but now we have the added fun of dealing with antiquated tunnels through some of the mountains. The tunnels are very long, only one lane wide, and have no lighting in them. You have to sound your horn as you enter the tunnel and hope you don't meet a car coming the other way. We did meet a car head on in one of the tunnels, and we had to back out of the tunnel about 250 feet (the other car was further into the tunnel than we were) in order to let them through. Kudos to John for his good backwards driving skills while under pressure!!
From here we will head back toward the border of Spain and into the Cathars castle country.
 
 

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Bridge from 1366 in Brousse le Chateau	Brousse le Chateau and river	Brousse le Chateau	Fields of wheat in the countryside
Our inn at Brousse le Chateau	Rich selling vegetables in town	View from our room at the inn

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