Spring is here

Although it felt more like summer today. I hope it doesn't get too much hotter. We don't have any A/C.

Anyway, last weekend (April 13th) we took yet another trip. We bought a Eurail pass back in September, and it will expire this week, so we just had to use it up. This time we went to Carcassonne, Toulouse and Lourdes. These are all cities in the South of France, in the Occitane region, where the language variations are more like Spanish. It is called Occitane because the word for 'yes' was 'oc' instead of 'oui' down there. This was all before Paris imposed modern French on all of France, or something like that.

Carcassonne is best known for its medieval castle. This castle is really a double-walled medieval city, with a castle in the inner wall. Within the outer wall are a bunch of tourist traps. I think we dropped about $6 on 3 caramels at one of those candy shops. They were good, though. The free olive shapped chocolates more than made up for it. They had shops that sold swords and medieval weapons of minimal destruction. There were other shops that had Provencal pottery, and shops that had regional fabric. We ate at one of the many restaurants serving the regional favorite dish called 'Cassoulet', which is basically navy beans, sausage and a leg of duck. It was actually a really good meal. Rustic French food is really the best thing ever.

We took a tour of the castle. We got to visit a lot of the towers along the inner wall. All of the towers were constructed with different architecture. Near the end of the tour we could see the gardens of a really nice hotel inside the outer wall called Hotel la Ville or something. It costed about $500 a night. Kevin Costner supposedly stayed there while filming part of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.




Next stop, Toulouse - the 5th largest city in France. It is called 'The Pink City' because most everything was built with brick (which is really more of a redish-brownish-orange). That is unusual for France, in my limited experience. It was one of the nicer cities I've seen, mostly because of the clean, dog-poopless sidewalks. There were a bunch of Romanesque cathedrals there. Most of the cathedrals in northern France are of the Gothic style. That was pretty much it.



On Sunday, we headed to Lourdes. If you don't know anything about Lourdes, just think of Myrtle Beach, or Gatlinburg, with a bunch of shops selling Virgin Mary shaped water bottles. The story behind that place is that about 130 years ago a girl named Bernadette claimed to have seen the Virgin Mary appear to her in a grotto (a little cave in the side of a hill where water flows out of). A magnificent cathedral was built on the hill over the grotto. The cathedral is relatively new, and basically is the most glorious one in France today. And there is also an underground basillica that seats probably 20 thousand people. Lourdes is a very popular place for Catholics to take a pilgrimage. And, as I've said earlier, the tourism industry reigns supreme in that town. It has the second largest number of hotels of any city in France.

Then we got back on the train for another 6 or 7 hours and ended up back in Angers. Along the way we went through the Aquitane region. It reminded me a lot of eastern NC because there was nothing but flat expanses of sandy farmland and pine trees as far as the eye could see. As we made our way north the landscape became more rolly. This time of year there are many fields planted with oil seed rape, supposedly a major source of Canola oil. These small plants have a bright yellow flower, so if you can imagine the endless fields of bright yellow you can get a glimpse of what it was like. Very picturesque!

Turkey

Merhaba!
Turkey. What a fascinating country...we visited so much that this blog will be difficult to write.
Here are some observations we made: Turkey is a clash of modern and traditional values. For example, Istanbul is a modern city of 15 million people and is fairly secular. As you move east into Cappadocia, people are practicing muslims, women are veiled, and marriages are arranged - such was the case of our awesome Turkish guide, Selim. He was the most jovial guy, always cracking jokes, and he was concerned that some people on our tour were agnostic...you could tell he loved his religion and his country and did not hesitate to ask "So, why don't you believe in God??"

The food was tasty (Kebab joints on every corner) but I don't think I will crave tomatoes and olives at breakfast again.

We drank about 50 cups of tea (apple, raspberry, lemon) offered to us by rug dealers, pottery makers, jewery salesmen, etc. We became confident in our ability to say "no" to rug salesmen though they can be quite persistant. The rugs were beautiful but very expensive. We saw the handmade technique used and it's well worth the price. For example, an 8 x 5 silk rug (the highest quality and took four years to make by hand) was $25,000. The two foot long silk rug was $900. Good thing we knew how to say no or we'd be selling my Honda and hoping that carpet could fly us around Raleigh instead.

One of my sweetest memories was when a group of schoolgirls stopped me outside of the Blue Mosque to interview me for their English term paper. They wanted to know my favorite foods, music, job, etc. They were so eager and yet timid to speak English with me. We found that common around Turkey...children loved to practice English and everytime we passed a group of children, we heard "Hello! Hello! How are you?"

Zack's highlight was going paragliding over the beautiful Mediterrean coast...I gladly watched him drift higher and higher up in the sky and he got some great pics which we've included in our slideshow.

This country is tourist friendly, the people are incredibly hospitable, and the history will amaze you. We saw Alexander the Great's tomb, mummies, ancient cities of Ephesus, Hieropolis, and cave artwork nearly 2000 years old. We even saw artifacts from the Hittite era, 4000 years ago. In Cappadocia, we saw the caves in which persecuted Christians lived between the 1st and 2nd centuries, including underground cities. One dwelling was nine stories deep with a church on the bottom floor! It was amazing to walk where Apostle Paul and other saints walked, and to imagine how life was so many years ago.

So, we'll leave you with a photo slideshow. Enjoy!





By the way, America voted, and the winning title is "Turkey, shoulda called it 'Lamb'!" (I ate lamb almost every day)