Sunday 7/17/16

The Internet was down yesterday so will try to catch up on the posts today.  Will get pix on when I can.  The owners of the farmhouse (La Prade) were very nice.  Andrew works in the business district of London and Sally is a flight attendant for British Air, although she has a reduced schedule now - she works 6 days and then has 12 off.  She also only flies in Europe so she doesn't have any overnights.  They have two children, a boy, 16 and a girl, 15.  Their daughter was here with them as well as their dog Max who had an insatiable appetite for having you throw the ball and then running to fetch it and drop it at your feet.  He apparently can do this for hours.  The humans wear out well before he does.

Yesterday was another beautiful day.  We had breakfast and then drove a short distance to Camon, which is known as the most picturesque village in France.  It was quite lovely with a beautiful Abbey on the top of the hill (now an Inn and restaurant), narrow streets and great views of the surrounding countryside and the river.  The Abbey was built in the 10th century and supposedly started by Charlemagne.  Most of the town was built in the 12th through 14th centuries.   Camon is known as the city of a hundred roses and there are roses everywhere - in gardens, on trellises on the sides of the house - quite beautiful.  We had a nice time just walking around and poking into little alleyways.  We headed back and stopped at a ruin that we had seen from the road - Chateau de Lagarde.  This was started as one watchtower in the 12th century and grew into a major fortress by the 14th and 15th centuries.  In the late 16th century it was converted into a mansion and was inhabited by a series of dukes until the French Revolution.  The owners fled to Italy so the commune then deemed the castle a quarry and it was dismantled for its stone, ending in the ruinous state today.  If the owners had stayed, they would have been beheaded and the mansion saved.  Quite the choice!  We came back to La Prade and had lunch out by the pool.  Some of us chose to stay in and by the pool while others chose to nap.  We then went into Mirepoix for dinner at a restaurant on the square.  Nick and Dan are quite adventurous in sampling local fare so Dan had beef tongue and Nick had tripe.  After dinner we found an ice cream stand further along the square and those who wished had either a cone or a bowl.  I am not much of an ice cream eater, but Laura gave me a taste of her strawberry and it was like eating the fruit right out of the field - I may have to indulge next time.