I woke up Monday (August 5th) around 3pm after having gone to bed around 6:30am after the final night of dancing, hanging out at the beach and getting freshly baked croissants and a huge macaroon dessert pictured below (in that order). I still had no idea where I’m going next and where I’m going to sleep that night.

A huge macaroon with raspberries. So delicious!

I had made new friends at the west coast swing dance camp in the past 10 days. One of them was Zac. He is about my age and was born in USA, but has lived in France for the past 9 years. We instantly connected and could talk about anything and everything. Since I didn’t really have set plans for what to do right after the camp, other than that I need to get to Cardiff by Friday passing through Paris. So me and Zac decided to hang out for couple more days.

For a split second I was wondering whether I should commit spending two days together with somebody I barely know. However, desire for adventure and learning was stronger. Besides, I can always bail if I don’t like something.

Zac came by and we started brainstorming of where could we go. He had a car so road-trip it is. Me armored with Google Maps and Google Search, he with a Blackberry texting friends who live in the area. I started with looking for hikes in the Pyrenees since its relatively close to Montpelier and I have been to the other big mountain ranges in France. Also Zac mentioned that in the nine years he has been in France he hasn’t been on a hike. But his car is full of camping gear! Can’t explain that! Seems that the French look at camping just as another type of accommodation. One could stay at a hotel or just go camping. In my mind from experiences in the USA camping sites always have trails leading to them, but in France they also could be standalone. For example, in La Grande Motte there was a camping site in the middle of city with four spots. There were no forests or hikes next to it that I could see in the map.

One thing lead to another and I looked up in Wikipedia for the list of highest mountains in the Pyrenees. Mount Aneto at 11,168 feet (3,404 m). Hmmm, I need a reference point. How does that compare to the highest peak in the Sierras in California (not that I have climbed it)? That would be Mount Whitney at 14,505 feet (4,421 m). Ooh, ok, not too bad. I noticed that Zac looked concerned. I assured him:

“Its not that I need to climb any of these mountains, its just that there usually are good hikes at the base.”

He replied visibly relieved:

“Oh, good.”

Zac mentioned there are lots of castles in south of France. Yes! That’s exactly what I want to see. I remember how years earlier a French friend of mine took me on a tour to three French castles near Claremont-Ferrand and I loved it!

The plan was the following. The first stop will be Carrcasonne (a big castle not to miss), then some other castles south of there, then finish the loop in Toulouse, which is home for Zac and from where I can take train to Paris.

I just quickly checked some hotels in Carcassonne, looked like there was plenty of availability, so we were good to go.

We finally left Le Grande Motte at around 9pm and arrived at Carcassonne really late. The first hotel I looked at and that we stopped at had a signed that they are booked full. Ok. Next! I had no internet and I’m glad I saved some options offline on my laptop. Found the address of the second choice hotel and was able to find it on Google Maps on my phone. Remember I don’t have internet on the phone, but we were able to get to the place with cached Google Maps. I love technology! I was navigating and took some wrong turns because resolution wasn’t high and there were many one way streets, but eventually we got there. It was past midnight and nobody was at the reception. But it had a machine where you can reserve a night and it spits out a key. How cool!

I didn’t sleep well. My stomach was acting up and made couple runs to the bathroom (Well, not really runs, just get up and open bathroom doors, the room was so small!). I guess the smoked salmon sandwich that I picked up at a gas station on the way to Carcassonne wasn’t a good choice.

In the morning, first stop was Carcassone castle.

This is the model of the castle. The area in the middle is not empty it contains a small medieval village.

I just love the views:

By the time we explored and ate it was already 3pm. Definitely longer than I expected, but we don’t have to rush anywhere either. That’s the benefit of not planning every detail.

The next castle is D’Arques. In general choosing which castles to visit was pretty random, the ones with more information won. Here for exampel, Zac’s friend said there is a lake nearby it.

The castle wasn’t nearly as impressive as Carcassonne castle, but interesting nonetheless. It is standing by itself middle of nowhere. You wonder (at least I do), how many people can fit in there and how tightly people used to live in medieval times.

Years ago, visiting other castles and just talking about history I thought to myself that it would be really cool to live in a castle. However, this one probably would not fit the bill as it is a bit too small for big fancy parties. This is the whole space of one floor:

The views however are awesome:

And I could totally see myself sitting there and looking out the window to the expansive views.

Next, couple wrong turns later, we found the lake. So much green!

“Where are we going to stay tonight?” Zac asked.

We hadn’t thought that far. It really depended how far along we would had gotten in our route. Zac suggested camping here. I liked the idea! That meant I didn’t have to think and didn’t have to move from my nap on the grass. Plus then I can wake up with the view of the lake and go for a swim in the morning. Sounds fantastic! And so we did.

The nature had one surprise for us.

I had never seen such big hail drops!

In a brochure I picked up at at the hotel the previous night I saw that there is a Red Train with picturesque ride. So for the next morning the plan was to get somewhere with cell phone reception and call them up asking what times the train departs. We did that and it left us with couple of hours of time in which we decided to explore the castle of Peyrepertuse nearby.

In the meantime we also wanted to find a boulangerie, but no such luck. On our way we drove through many small towns ..

.. some just didn’t have a boulangerie (at least not on the main road), some didn’t work on Wednesdays and some close at noon.

The drive was absolutely gorgeous.

Castle of Peyrepertuse is built on top of a mountain. Finally I get to see one of those castles that majestically stand above all else.

You can barely tell its a castle. It blends so well with the rocks!

The pictures can’t do the justice to the expansive views, but here it goes anyways.

Here is a video:

It was getting nearer when we should leave to catch the red train, but the castle was so amazing and we happened to have stumbled on a Medieval festival that we decided to just stay there and explore.

A falcon!

The castle itself:

Look how steep the rock wall is!

Look, the castle takes up the whole clif!

I love expansive spaces like this! I could sit there for hours!

After the castle we drove down to the village below and explored the medieval market.

After exploring the medieval festival and eating we took the scenic route to Toulouse (ie. avoiding highway). I was the navigator and we made some wrong turns, but it was for the better! Because of it we saw the most breathtaking views in the whole trip.

We made to to Toulouse and then I took night train to Paris.

Also, for these two days we were navigating with the help of cached Google Maps with no internet connection. I’m really impressed.

This road-trip definitely expanded my comfort zone. I like to plan so not knowing where to stay the night is unusual for me. It provided another example to my belief that taking wrong turns usually comes out for the better. And only good things can come out from saying yes to an adventure.