Travel Around The Clock

2013 has been, for us, the year we discovered France. Not that we had never been there before, but we had only visited Paris until last year when we finally took our time to explore a bit of the countryside, especially in the south. France is an amazing country and not only for its wines and good food (oh yes we love them!!) but because it is also extraordinarily rich in history and art. Other than the myriad of castles spread all over the country (check out our post about some of them) there are plenty of interesting attractions. Above all of them, the prehistoric caves we visited during our 2 weeks on the road in the southern part of the country have left special memories in our hearts. Have you ever heard about Lascaux ? If the answer is yes, well, forget about them.  The original cave is not accessible and the only thing you can visit is a reconstruction ( Lascaux II ). It may be interesting but we preferred to go for some real ones: Font de Gaume and Les Combarelles , ...

If every serious fairytale has a castle, then France is the quintessential fairytale country, considering the ridiculous amount of Chateaux in the country. And if a lack of knowledge had made us think that they were merely located on the Loire banks or used as accommodations by the wealthy wine producers of Bordeaux, a 2 weeks trip on the road in Southern France proved us completely wrong. We encountered plenty of castles of various ages and architectural styles; some of them were closed as December is low season but we still managed to visit most of them and were lucky enough to have guides all by ourselves giving us private tours! We started form the Perigord Vert and the Chateau de Bourdeilles , which is itself a double castle, including a medieval building and a Renaissance one, both very well preserved and accessible for a €7 per head. Chateau de Bourdeilles The medieval part is of course much more austere, while the Renaissance building has still plenty of decoration, furnish...