I had the first night of good sleep since Sunday. Boy did that feel good. I am back to happy me again. We got up at 7 so that we could drive to a city called Sarlat. It is about 2 hours from Bordeaux. We got there around 10:30, just in time for the open market. One thing that is interesting here in France is that all the stores close down between noon and two for lunch and then they open back up for business. The restaurants are only open at that time. So everyone eats then. Even the schools break for two hours to let the children go home for lunch. The first thing we saw was a stand with what they call Paella. It is a mixture of mussels, shrimp (whole), sausage, huge pieces of chicken, rice, peas, onions, I think it also had bell peppers, and saffron. It was a sight and we had to get that for lunch since I knew I could pick through the meat and eat it. We got one big plate and shared it between the four of us. We didn’t even finish it. There was this big long skinny red thing I could see and wondered what it was until my dad picked up a shrimp and it was the antenna. SO weird. Oddly enough it tasted very good. It is nice that we are so close to the ocean and they eat a lot of sea food. We then walked around the market. It was very fascinating. It was an old town full of shops. Then on Saturdays, in front of the shops, people come and set up little stands full of their goods to sell. While there I bought things to bring back to family in the states. I bought something for my SIL Sarah for helping Emma with school while I was gone. And a beautiful scarf for my MIL for helping Jared and Sarah with school. I bought something for Ryan that I think he will be excited about. I did buy myself one little thing. I don’t need to buy myself much as my pictures are all I really want, but when I found these cute nesting dolls I had to get them. I got red ones so that I could put them out at Christmas. I enjoyed the slow pace of the day and just walking through this old village with modern shops. After this we went in search of a Chateau with gardens. This was harder then we originally thought because it is the tourist off season and nothing is open. Once we realized this we looked on the pamphlets to notice which ones were open. We found one close by called Marqueyssac. It had mazes made out of evergreen bushes and it had an amazing view. The actual Chateau was closed and we could not get inside but they did have one window open so we could look inside. The Chateau, or castle, was on top of a huge hill and you could see two other castles from the gardens. One of the castles was so large with a huge walled city that we realized we just had to make our way over there. The Chateau was called Beynac. I think this was my favorite place we have visited so far. The inside of the castle was closed (we have yet to see inside a castle) but the city that surrounded it was so intriguing. As we walked down the narrow streets that were surrounding the castle it was silent and I could just imagine what it would have been like to live in the 12th century when this was built and have my horses go through these narrow streets. Up at the top you could see the river and overlook the vineyards. As we continued to walk down through the streets to the bottom I realized that people are still living in these houses. In one of the yards I saw a tricycle. The town below was so tiny with not much more then a small bakery, butcher, and grocery store the size of our quickie marts. There were a few restaurants that were for the tourists. I felt like I had traveled back in time and there was something so serene about the quiet stillness of it all. It made me want to take my family and move to some remote location so that we could experience this wonderful slowing down pace. We bought bread at the bakery as it was closing down and ate yummy sandwiches made of Mexican tuna salad from a can and avocados. If they had this stuff in the states I would buy stock in it. Again I will say yum! We headed for home around 8 and I think I feel asleep right away. When we got home I woke up just enough to walk inside, get undressed, and conk out. I had another goodnight sleep and when my mom woke us up for church I was so excited to realize I had slept so well.
This is me in the Marqueyssac.
And here we are leaning on the wall at the castle in Beynac.
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