Quercy (mostly)

So this weekend I went to Quercy, in the south of France. It was really amazing to see a part of France other than Paris. The area we visited was full of tiny villages, some of them more than a thousand years old. I took 83 pictures, which is quite a few for me. Glennis took more than 300. For some reason I can't upload more pictures in this post but there's one more that I'll start another post for. First, we have a "château des anglais", literally "castle of the English". The title is misleading because it was actually a castle built by the French to defend against the English during the 100 Years War. It's built right into a cliff, making it a safe haven from everything except gravity. There wasn't much of it left, but this picture has the cliff, the remnants of the castle and a small village in the lower right-hand corner.




We also visited a goat farm. The goats are raised for their wool, which is really soft. Apart from their wool, the goats are also extremely cute, especially the babies.


Glennis and I got up wicked early (7:30 AM) on Sunday to get pictures of the sun rise from above Rocamadour. Rocamadour is a small village built into a cliff, and it's a big pilgrimmage site. Many pious individuals used to climb to the top of the cliff on their knees, and this is a cross that was erected in the 19th century and then reinforced in 2000, probably by such pious individuals.

There is also a palace of the bishop at the top of the cliff and I got a pretty good picture of it with the rising sun.


Maybe it's inappropriate to put this photo after photos of a cross and a palace of the bishop, but I'm trying to post semi-chronologically. We were in another small village, maybe Carennac, getting ready to leave, and Glennis and Alexa saw this little sculpture. I saw the front of it and thought it was pretty boring. I looked at Glennis like I look at Glennis the majority of the time we're together, with a look that says "are you seriously going to take a picture of that?" However, all of a sudden, she and Alexa started laughing hysterically, so I checked it out. It's a "cul" with a not-entirely-visible-in-this-picture-sheep on the top. Weird, but it made for a great photo.


Penultimately, here is a picture I like a lot that I took last weekend of Paris around sunset. You can see the Eiffel Tower, and I really should know what that other building is, but I don't.

In other news, classes are picking up and I think I'm finally getting into them. Last week I sort of slept through several classes, and a lot of the time I just wanted to be checking out Paris instead of sitting in a classroom. However, today's course on medieval art was great and I think now that I've had a month here, I might be ready to put in some effort. What else to say? Oh, I need to add a bit to what I said about chocolate. Chocolate is very dangerous here. It is so good that a bar weighing 100g is practically inseparable from your hand. Last Wednesday afternoon, I bought three cheap chocolate bars. I had finished every one by the next morning. It's a good thing I'm starting a French boxing class tomorrow. And now, the other post.