The Adventures of Cris and Paul: France days 10-12 - Culinary Delights and Dizzying Heights

The adventures continue in the south of France. We've been in the Avignon area for a few days looking at old stuff, but today is something a bit different... TRUFFLES!

Letting the dog smell the truffle to let him know we're done digging

We went on a tour of a truffle farm and got to follow the dogs as they sniffed around oak trees to find truffles. They quickly found the scent and started digging, at which point the farmers had to stop them so they don't damage the valuable fungi. Then we just slowly dug, scraped, and pried until the truffle popped free. It was a lot of work but it was worth the truffle.

After digging a bunch we got a nice bag full and went to the air conditioned barn where the farmer made us a bunch of truffle appetizers.

Yep, that's truffled ice cream (and a glass of champagne)

All the food was super delicious. This was our first time having truffles (besides the fake truffle cheese junk and the Truff hot sauce which is just poison). By the end the other people on the tour got full or sick of it or something so Cris and I went around and ate all the leftover truffles. Cris even palmed a few shavings for later. Every morning is a good morning when you get to pet dogs.

That took much of the day and we were hot so to cool off we stopped by the Grottes of Thouzon (a little cave) on the way home. It was pretty but there were some rude dutch people making noises the whole time. You know what they say, "If you're a Dutch then you ain't worth much".

For some reason this cave had a ton of really skinny stalactites like noodles hanging down so it was extra pokey. Should we call them spaghettites or stalactghetti? The guide only spoke French so most of my questions remain unanswered. Like why are the Dutch so rude?

We also stopped for our first French wine tasting which was great. The guy doing the pours was really nice and talked decent English so we had our first real conversation of the trip. Well, sometimes we talk to each other.

We don't know much about wine but these tasted good. A bunch of Syrah and Grenache grapes?

The next day we were heading to Carcassonne but saw an Abbey along the way so we stopped. It ended up being really neat and I love a self-guided tour where you can just mess around at your own pace.

Abbaye de Fontfroide

They also had a pretty garden which some of us are obsessed with.

That took a bit longer than expected as well as lunch (and we stopped for a gin/whisky tasting) so we didn't get to Carcassonne until after the ramparts closed.

Lunch with those people on the river in Trebes

Side note: The French have a reputation for being rude and not liking tourists. We have had nothing but good interactions with people. As long as you say 'Bonjour' when you first see someone they'll treat you well. We always forget to use our translation app so we spent a good 5 minutes in a cheese shop with a jolly guy trying to communicate which cheeses we want. It was awkward but he never stopped being cheerful and helpful. Basically, just be polite and try to speak a bit of their language and they'll meet you halfway.

Even after the ramparts closed we could still wander the old city of Carcassonne, so on a whim I downloaded an app called VoiceMap. It's an audio guide that automatically plays based on GPS. You just follow the directions and walk while the guide talks (in headphones) and explains all sorts of history and architecture stuff. It was our favorite tour we've ever been on, highly recommended. And Carcassonne is insane.

The next morning we got to go up on the walls of Carcassonne. We have a "Passion Monuments" pass so this and a few other sights are already paid for, otherwise I don't know that it was worth the price to go up there. It was cool, but so was the walk on ground level.

Next we're up in Rocamadour which is a bunch of buildings built into a cliffside, so stay tuned for that. But on the way was the 4 castles hike. We've learned through our travels that we enjoy more freeform, guide-yourself type of adventures so this hike was perfect. There are four castle ruins all on one mountain ridge.

This pic looks kinda fake but I promise we were there

It was a strenuous hike to get to all of them but it was well worth it. Each castle had its own charm: one was just a circle which had a tiny entrance I had to crawl through, another had a series of arched rooms that were once barracks, and the last had a tight spiral staircase leading up four floors.

After adventuring through each castle we came back to the car exhausted so decided to skip Albi Cathedral. Later days. After a couple hour drive we arrived at Rocamadour which is more touristy than we like but still cool. We're here before the French high-season so there's only a few dozen other people staying here.