Whew!!  Another very busy week.  We are going to be very worn out when we get home, but it is definitely worth it.
 
The week started out the same as always, school and work.  Thursday night we had a baby sitter, so David and Amy went to downtown Toulouse to do some shopping and have dinner.  We ate at a very good Italian restaurant.  But oh!!  the desserts!!  WOW!!  We will definitely miss those.
 
We packed up on Friday and left town early, heading for Bordeaux.  This was to be our base of operations for the next two days.  We did not know, however, that the entire town of Bordeaux was under construction.  It seems they are putting in a rail system/metro and there are few roads that are not affected.  It made getting around a real challenge.  We found our hotel, after a good tour of the city while searching.  We had dinner at another Italian restaurant.  This time we dinned outside on the sidewalk.  It was like being at a cafe in Paris.  There was even a musician in the square.  Very nice.
 
Due to the construction, leaving the parking garage to get back to our hotel was an adventure.  Most of the level we had parked on was closed for construction.  When we went to leave, there was a man standing by the ramps directing people where to go.  He told us to go to the third level down (we were on the second) and yelled at us when we tried to go up the ramp marked sortie (exit).  So we went down to the third level, followed the signs to the exit, and ended up....  by the man again.  He apparently didn't recognize us because he told us to go to the third level.  Even when we rolled down the window and asked him for the sortie, he said the third level.  So we went down again, and ended up in the same place, next to the man.  This time, while he was telling us to go to the third level, we made sure that he LISTENED when we said sortie.  Oh, he said, then go UP the ramp.  We were laughing very hard.
 
The next morning, we headed north to a city by the Atlantic called Royan.  In  1945 this town was totally destroyed by German bombers.  There were no buildings left standing.  We had noticed that the whole town looked "new" compared to every other town we have been in.  This is because they rebuilt the whole thing 50 years ago.  The bombings even destroyed the Cathedral.  So in the early 50's, they built a new church.  It is a huge building that towers over the city.  Oval in shape (most cathedrals are in the shape of a cross), it is made entirely out of poured concrete.  It was totally different from anything we have seen here.  The stained glass windows were very impressive.  The stations of the cross were all made of stained glass.  The very strange thing was that it was falling apart.  There was a major restoration in progress and there were places that you could see the concrete had fallen apart.  We found this amazing as we have seen churches a thousand years old that were in really good condition, and then there was this church, only fifty years old, needing major repairs.  They must have known what they were doing way back when.
 
On the way out of Royan, we waved across the Atlantic to all of you over in the states.  Did you see us??
 
From Royan, we headed to the town of Cognac.  The whole town smells of Cognac.   3% of the cognac in barrels evaporates every year.  There is also this weird black moss growing on all the buildings.  It grows on the cognac fumes.  No one does anything about the moss, though.  They are quite proud of it.  It is a sign that cognac is successfully produced there.
 
Anyway, we took a tour of the Chateaux de Francois 1st, king of France.  His castle is now the factory for Otard Cognac, one of the leading producers.  The tour was very informative (in French), and showed us the room where Francois was born, held his banquets, kept his horses, and kept his prisoners.  In this particular room, there was lots of graffiti on the walls.  We thought this was strange until the guide pointed out that it was dated 1756.  250 year old graffiti!!  Pretty impressive.  We also saw many of the barrels where cognac is aged.  Some of it ages for as few as 5-7 years, others for as long as 75 years!!  There is one man whose sole job it is to taste the aging cognac and decide when it is ready to be blended or bottled.  He has apprenticed for 20 years to get this job.  We got a taste of their cognac at the end of the tour.  Apparently it is very good.  Neither of us were all that excited about it (read as YUCK!)  However, we did pick up some neat souvenirs, can say we bought them at the source, and we can keep them forever as cognac doesn't age in the bottle.
 
From Cognac we went to the costal town of La Rochelle.  This town has a very nice Aquarium, so we thought we would check it out.  The boys really needed a break from castles and cathedrals.  The aquarium was really fun, with many "bubbles" built into the tanks so you could feel like you were under water with the fish (Michael did not like this sensation very much, but he really liked the fish).  Michael's favorite exhibit was the Florida painted turtles!!  Andrew really liked the Sawfish that was swimming above us.
 
At this point, we decided to call it a day.  It started raining on the way back to the hotel, and we commented how nice it was that we hadn't had to do any sightseeing in the rain.  You never should say things like that out loud.
 
We were up and out of the hotel early on Sunday morning.  We left Bordeaux and headed of to St Emillion.   We knew that this town had tours of catacombs that we though Andrew would enjoy.  He always wants to go to the dungeons of the castles and this was as close as we have been able to get.
 
When we got to St Emillion, it was sprinkling so we decided to drive around looking for the office de tourisme.  It turned out to be hard to find.  We drove down streets that were never meant to have a van on them.  We are impressed the van didn't get stuck.  We also came upon a lot of armed gendarmes wandering around. It was unnerving.  There were even gendarmes on the tops of buildings surveying the town.  We weren't sure that this was the day to visit.  However, we thought we would try to find the office de tourisme on foot before we gave up.  We parked by the only sign that we could find that showed the way and started walking.  It was still sprinkling, but we weren't worried.  We finally found the office and were able to ask what was going on.  Apparently a big politician was giving a speech.  He walked through town later and even said bon jour to Dave!!
 
Anyway, we signed up for a tour and even got one in English.  It was going to be a private tour until a tour bus dropped off a bunch of English tourists.  It turned out to be a very full tour.  It started to rain harder as we left for the tour, but it was of underground sites so we thought it shouldn't be a problem.  We started off in an above ground chapel that had been used for making barrels to store wine.  There had been many fires in the church and until recently the walls had been covered in a layer of thick soot.  They decided to clean the church and found some beautiful frescos painted at the front.  They were from about the 11th century and had been very well preserved under the soot.
 
By this point, it was raining fairly hard and Michael didn't want to have anything to do with the tour, so Dave walked with him outside the chapel.
 
Form there we went to an underground chapel.  This was used by St Emillion for personal meditation.  There was a bed and a chair carved right out of the limestone rock.  Legend has it that if you sit in the chair, you become fertile.  We refrained from sitting.
 
It was starting to rain harder at this point and Amy was walking with Michael outside.  So we decided to split up.  Amy and Andrew finished the tour and Michael and David tried to find someplace dry to stay. Unfortunately, it was close to 12:00 and everyplace was closed.  They walked in a steady downpour for almost an hour.  They were soaked!!  Michael enjoyed discovering the art of puddle jumping.
 
The tour now went down into the catacombs.  There were tombs the size of a tight coffin carved out of the rock.  Then a headstone was placed over the body.  The bones of St Emillion were kept in these catacombs for hundreds of years, healing people and helping people buried near them get to heaven.  Then about the time of the French revolution, the protestants in the area decided that keeping these bones and using them to "heal" people was a pagan practice, so they destroyed them.  They also destroyed the oldest part of the catacombs, dating from the 8th and 9th centuries.  There were still some very old tombs to be seen though.
 
The catacombs led to a cathedral that was carved out of the limestone.  The builders started at the top windows and worked their way down.  This cathedral was the same size as all the others we have seen, very romanesque with curved ceilings, high arches, and tall pillars, but it was carved out of one piece of limestone.  It was amazing to think of the planning that had gone into building this church.  It is undergoing a restoration currently to make sure that it doesn't collapse.  This is partly due to the fact that there is a huge bell tower built on the top of the church.  It can be seen from outside the city.  The weight of the tower was slowly destroying the pillars holding up the ceiling.
 
We had a nice lunch while everyone dried off.  The sun also came out, and by the time lunch was over, there wasn't a cloud to be seen.  Just our luck.  It only rained while we were outside.
 
One the way out of town, we stopped by a "wine school" to learn about the wine of the region, St Emillion.  St Emillion wines are made from mostly Merlot grapes (about 85%) so it is a very sweet wine.  And it is very good.  The best we have had since arriving in France.  Even Dave liked it.  We bought a bottle that should be ready to drink when we get home and two bottles that won't be ready for another two or three years.  We also have the name and e-mail address of the store so we can order more if we want.
 
On the way back to the house, we stopped of at a town called Moissac to see the Abbey de Saint Pierre, which was originally built in the 7th century.  It was rebuilt a few times due to religious wars.  What is currently standing is from the 15th century.  It was a very pretty church, but what was most impressive was Cloister.  A cloister is a courtyard that is surrounded by a covered walkway, the  ceiling of which is held up by many columns.  What makes this one so special is that each of the 76 columns is intricately carved, and each one is different.  They were very beautiful.  We were really glad that we stopped off to see them.
 
Well, so ends another addition of the Furman Weekly, French Edition.  See you all next week.