The 5th of April

Today was the first day that it really struck me that I had become a tourist for this trip. We woke up and wandered downstairs for our petit déjeuner (breakfast) and then packed up our car for our next destination- Carcassonne. Today was the first day that it really hit me that I had transitioned into a real tourist instead of a student living here. My perspective changed and I saw everything with wide opened eyes and was a mix of extremely excited and enthusiastic and calm... I'm totally aware that this is a strange mix of emotions but that's the best description I could think of! I think that the quiet drive through French countryside was a calming yet truly beautiful and breath taking couple of hours. We decided to get off the toll road and drive on the smaller roads through France- this was one of the best decisions we've ever made. We didn't know where we were going but we knew that a small town had a castle and that that would be a perfect spot for lunch. With myself at the wheel, Samuel with his GPS iPhone, Karla with her map, and mom with her eyes peeled for signs we eventually found one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen (and that isn't an overstatement).

The sun was just perfectly lighting the landscape, there was a slight breeze but the climate remained warm and perfectly adjusted, and the countryside began to represent "the South of France" or sometimes even places in Italy. With the perfectly erect oval pine trees standing 30 feet tall at least, beautiful villa homes with charming aesthetics, tiny winding streets, and mountainous terrain that helped nourish the infinite vineyards was only half of the amazing scenery around us. When we found the village we were trying to get to just outside of the city called "Villeneuve sur Lot" there was a very tall hill, or I suppose it would be appropriate to call it a mountain with a small ancient city leading up to the top. At the very top of the mountain was a building with a silver half sphere sparkling in the distance. We navigated our car through the mountainous village and finally found the road up to this "Bastille" by intuition. We needed to eat, and so by absolute chance at the base of the Bastille grounds were picnic tables looking out over the massive landscape. We pulled our our sausage and cheese a small baguettes, our arrangement of pears, bananas, and grapes, water and dried fruit and had the most fantastic lunch with an even more fantastic view. If we looked up we could make out a huge statue of Mary on top of the Bastille. With great excitement to find the temple at the top of the mountain we finished our lunch and found a close parking spot to the medieval entrance.

The four of us walked through the stone arch of the "Notre-Dame de Peyragude" and followed the stone path the overlooked the most charming village you can imagine and up towards the peak of the mountain. It was a wooded area that led to a cave. We explored this area with the interest of curious child- discovering something for the first time. To our great surprise inside of the cave was a great shrine for Mary Magdeline, and a beautiful statue/ column of an angel overlooking the entrance that was encoded in Latin. There were countless offerings of flowers around the shrine. Continuing around the wooded cliff there was a small path that led to the actual Bastille. It was the most beautiful temple/ cathedral I have ever seen in my life. You could just feel how much meaning was behind this building. The energy at this site was very powerful and a strong sense of peace was over all of us. We walked towards the entrance of the Bastille and the tier (of the cliff) just below us was a good sized cemetery with flowers wrapped all over the grave markings. This tier had the most beautiful view of the Mediterranean landscape that was around us. We wandered inside of the Bastille and we all lit candles for the statue of Mary and Jesus and gazed agape at the stain glass surrounding us.

Afterward, we began to head back to our car when Sam and I remembered an unexplored path going even further up the hill. We hiked up by ourselves and discovered a flat surface with the remains of some kind of ruin that used to just be one room looking out over the Bastille. Looking in the other direction though there was a very tall and realistic scene of Jesus on the cross and two sad statues of either Mary or an Angel looking up at him with red tears. It was shockingly beautiful.

After this amazing experience we made it to our hostel just outside of Carcassonne. Sidsmums Travelers Retreat was actually owned by a British woman and resembled someones home. It was truly like staying at her house with other American/ Australian travelers, and we were experiencing true English hospitality. She recommended where to eat dinner in town- which isn't just any old town. It's one of the only perfectly preserve medieval cities left today. We're in a historically Cathar region thus this beautifully intact fortress used to be home to Cathar's in their glory days. It is an incredibly impressive site. We made our way into "Le Cité", crossed the drawbridge and explored the medieval grounds until we found "St. Jean Restaurant" and had a fabulous diner by candle light.

Afterward we wandered around the dark city, letting the old street lamps guide us around until eventually we made it to our car, made it to our hostel, made it to bed.