Castles.

Written 5^th May 2012

Today we visited 2 very different castles. The first was in the little town Puivert, where we stayed last night. We awoke to a sunny morning shining on a glistening landscape. This was the view from out our window.

And here a few sunny ones of where we stayed.

After breakfast and packing up we drove up the hill to where the castle was. It was quite impressive. It is a ruin but one of the best preserved in Europe (apparently according to the right up on one of the castle walls). It was mighty old – older than the 1200's but we were not sure when it was built. It had impressive views. But it was cold in the main tower. Can't imagine living in a castle in the middle of winter! Brrrr. It was fun imagining what the place looked like when it was whole. There were many battles fought over it as it is in a good position geographically. It was beautiful and remote.

I like this photo because you can see where the other bits of the castle used to join onto the main tower.

Next we decided to drive to Carcasson as 2 Auzzies that we met where we stayed the night recommended it having just come from there. So off we went. We arrived and couldn't find what was supposed to be so interesting and where just driving out of town when we spotted it. It is such a pretty castle, with lovely pointed fairy tail turrets.

It is the largest fortified city in Europe (according to the Lonely Planet Guide Book). We enjoyed strolling through the narrow quaint streets and imagining times gone by. Then next thing you know we bump into the 2 Auzzie people we had been talking to on the hill above San Sebastian 2 days before!!! What are the chances of that? So we had another bit of a chat and continued on our little tour before getting back in the car to drive to the coast.

Here we found a camp site next to the beach and set up camp. After cooking dinner we went for a nice long walk along the beach and now I'm going to boil up some water for a hot chocolate before we have a read of our new books. Guess what though, before I go! In France and Spain and Morocco (will keep you posted on if other countries do this too) they just don't really do fresh milk. Like, I have not seen a single 2 litre bottle of milk. And some super markets don't have any fresh milk at all! Most have UHT though. (At fist we couldn't even find that in spain cause it looked like laundry detergent to us!) But how crazy is that! Imagine going into a supermarket (or dairy or petrol station for that matter) and there being no fresh milk! You would be like, “What kind of a supermarket is this?” and you would probably storm out in discust. They also don't really do sliced bread. It is way to expensive to consider and it doesn't look very fresh. But they more than make up for it with all the yummy patisseries with delicious fresh bread. But yeah, the milk thing is weird. And it is also funny cause when Steve gets a coffee – cafe-au-lait (coffee with milk), and I get a hot chocolate they often have to crack out a bottle of UHT from under the counter for us. So funny. They must think we a really odd. Anyway, I'm going to go make us some hot chocolate with our UHT milk. Yum Yum. Bye, love Amy. xoxo