ridgydidge46

We left Meteora early on Saturday morning to go to Athens. On the way, we stopped at Delphi (and consulted the Oracle). Delphi is situated high on the side of a mountain, with some impressive remains of ancient buildings. From the top, looking down over the ruins, you get a really good impression of the site as it might have been in its day. In the evening, we arrived in Athens and settled in. We have the most amazing view from the apartment. On Sunday, we went to the Acropolis and then on to the Acropolis Museum. In the evening, we walked around Monastriaki (where we are staying) and the Plaka, where we had dinner. The Plaka is a prominent tourist area, where there is shop after shop of souvenirs and tourist trinkets. Monday, we started ... read more

We arrived in Santorini late Sunday night and went immediately to our cave house in Oia. It had a private balcony with a view of the caldera. The next day, we explored Oia for a little bit, then took the bus to Thira. Both Oia and Thira have a maze of little streets to walk around. In Thira, we did a little shopping and checked out a couple of orthodox churches. In the evening, we had dinner and watched the sunset from the restaurant in Thira. The next day, Tuesday, we chilled out by the pool and took in the sunset at Oia. On Wednesday, we had booked a buggy to drive around Santorini, but we changed it to an air conditioned car because it was too hot. We then proceeded to Old Thira, with a ... read more

Tuesday, we set off for Le-Puy-en-Velay. As it was a long drive, we decided to break it up with a couple of stops at two villages classified amongst the most beautiful villages of France. The first was La-Garde-Guerin. This village is quite small and still contained within its walls. It would only take about half an hour to walk around the village. It was originally a fort dating from the 12thcentury. The unique thing about this village was that it was all made from the same stone. There was a tower and a tiny church. The view from the tower was to die for. The next village was Pradelles. As we drove into the village, we wondered how it received its classification as a beautiful city, so we passed straight through it. We arrived at Le-Puy ... read more

We arrived in Carcassonne early Wednesday afternoon and met our delightful host of the B & B we stayed in. We were surprised to see that we had a small apartment rather than just a room. After settling in we orientated ourselves to the Bastide St Louis, which is the “modern part of the City” (it’s actually 13thcentury!). The next morning (Thursday) we went to explore La Cité which is a 12th century fortified walled city and its castle. Early evening we took a boat trip up the Canal du Midi, which is a man-made canal that stretches 240 km from Toulouse. There are many locks in this canal, one being a 7-gate system rising 20 metres. Friday it was 43 degrees and we went to visit the Cathar Castles at Lastours; (fools are we). There ... read more

On Friday we arrived in Sarlat-de-la-Caneda, our base for the Dordogne region. We spent the afternoon exploring parts of this wonderful, intact medieval town. On Saturday, we set out to visit the villages of Montignac, Lascaux, Beynac et Canezac, and La Roque Gageac. Montignac was our first stop. It is another medieval village. At Lascaux, we descended into a cave to view rock paintings that were completed by Cro-Magnon man in the Palaeolithic period, 20 000 years ago. These paintings were extraordinary, but we were not able to take pictures. We then proceeded to Beynac et Canezac, which is also a medieval village on the Dordogne River. There is a huge castle at the top of the cliff overlooking the village (as with many villages in this region). The final stop for the day was La ... read more